


The Worst In Me

by everandanon



Series: Issues [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Additional Details/Warnings in the Notes, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Brief Mentions Of Past Relationships, Childhood Friends, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Flashbacks, Idiots in Love, Implied Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, POV Alternating, Pansexual Castiel, Past Child Abuse, Past Child Neglect, Recreational Drug Use, Therapy, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:35:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 141,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22181179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everandanon/pseuds/everandanon
Summary: They last a month.And then the cracks begin to show.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Issues [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1591348
Comments: 250
Kudos: 269





	1. hit me like a freight train in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> **This is a sequel to 'Issues' and 'And I'll Give Mine to You'. If you haven't read at least one of those, this might be harder to follow (particularly if you missed some flashbacks in Issues)**  
> 
> 
> ***** ABOUT THE OPEN RELATIONSHIP ***: Due to a misunderstanding, an open relationship is suggested and agreed upon, but neither Dean nor Cas sleep with anyone else in this story. Cas almost does at one point (a planned threesome), but does NOT go through with it. Details in the notes.**
> 
> _That said:_ while this particular version of Dean and Cas desire a monogamous romantic relationship with one another, I am in no way trying to suggest that is the blanket ideal or that open/poly/other types of relationships are in any way less valid. The only less valid relationship is the one where one or more people involved aren't getting their needs equally met.
> 
> Title taken from _Worst In Me_ by Julia Michaels.
> 
> If you have any concerns about the tags, I encourage you to read the additional notes. There is a stronger focus on childhood flashbacks in this story, and the abuse and neglect Dean and Cas have faced is explored in greater detail, so please take care of yourselves.
> 
> This is a very long story, and the bulk of it follows a complete breakdown in communication and their relationship. If you're looking for an angsty read exploring the psychology of two damaged people, both in childhood and adulthood, as well as the relationship dynamic between them over the years, this may fit the bill. If you're looking for domestic fluff or romantic shenanigans or a lighthearted, feel-good read, that is not what this is. (If you felt like they were still a mess at the end of Issues and you can't help but wonder where they go from there, then here's the answer, and also, I'm sorry in advance).
> 
> It's always a struggle to clearly and accurately represent a story before someone makes an investment, so I apologize if I've failed to do that here.
> 
> If you have any further questions about anything, be it the tags or even just wanting specific spoilers, so you know what to expect, please don't hesitate to leave a comment or shoot me an ask on tumblr (I am questionableraccoon over there).
> 
> **Important Disclaimer:** I am not a therapist, I have never been in therapy, and I have never so much as taken a psychology course. Thus, this is not in any way an accurate portrayal of any kind of therapy or of therapists. I apologize if it bothers anyone.
> 
> Additional warnings/details are in the end notes (especially if you are concerned about the child abuse tag, or about the sexual content (such as top/bottom stuff), please check them. I don't want to mislead people or give them unpleasant surprises). 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you find the journey satisfying!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: recreational drug use, drinking as a coping mechanism, implied/referenced bullying in childhood, suspected cheating (no actual cheating occurs), details in the end notes, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Chapter title taken from Ace of Hearts - Zella Day.
> 
> Thank you! ♡

“No,” Cas mumbles, burrowing deeper into the pillows, and Dean blinks groggily at him.

“Uh, yes.”

“ _No._ ”

“Dude, if you didn’t wanna wake up at five, you shouldn’t have booked the flight like that.”

Cas doesn’t even raise his head to glare.

“C’mon, man,” Dean coaxes, not exactly ready to get up himself. “You gotta leave in less than two hours.”

Cas merely groans.

“If you don’t wake up, I’m _waking_ you up,” Dean finally threatens, and Cas turns a little, revealing one sleepy blue eye.

“How?” he asks, gruff voice suddenly soft, and Dean’s stomach flips over.

He’s wide awake, now.

“Well. There’s — uh, ice cubes. Down your back.”

Cas watches, waiting, and Dean keeps talking, even though they both know how this is going to end.

“Or, um. _Heat of the Moment_. Loud and on repeat.” He swallows. “Then again, I could be nice and make you breakfast.”

There’s a pause.

“Or?”

Dean hesitates, then slowly lies back down and curls along Cas’s back, gratified when Cas sighs and presses against him. A lightbulb just flickered on inside his head, and Dean knows _exactly_ how to get Cas’s engine revving this morning.

“Or . . . I could do . . . _sexy things_.”

“Oh?” Cas sounds interested, and also like he’s smiling. “Are you going to make _sure_ I’m awake, Dean?”

“You bet,” he murmurs, low and sultry. “Gonna fuck you so hard you won’t even remember your own intense dislike for air travel.”

“Is that right?” Cas sounds breathless, like he’s either really turned on or trying really hard not to laugh.

It can be both, Dean reasons. He’s not worried about it, at any rate.

“Yeah, baby,” he drawls, kissing Cas’s shoulder. “You won’t remember the line for baggage check . . .” another kiss, “. . . or security . . .” and another, “. . . or havin’ to take your shoes off and get your toiletry bag out and your laptop and push your shit through the scanner before you go through and then reassemble it all on the other side-” He pauses for breath, leaving yet another kiss at the nape of Cas’s neck, “-or trying to time your bathroom break so you won’t have to go on the plane . . .”

Cas turns his face into the pillow, groaning.

“For God’s sake,” he mutters. “How are we both hard?”

“’Cause we’re _awesome,_ ” Dean declares, pleased, and figures he’d better lay off the filthy bedroom talk before Cas gets overwhelmed.

Cas nearly misses his flight, anyway.

“So, how have things been?”

Dean relaxes into the sofa, trying not to smile too big and trigger a contemplative scribble on Pamela’s notepad.

“Not too bad.” Fucking _awesome._ The last month living with Cas has been just like living with Cas always is, except they fight way less and when they do, it’s more likely to end in vaguely combative hanky-panky than anybody storming out. And the rest of the time, when they’re _not_ fighting — Dean can just walk up to Cas and put his hands on him, his mouth, and Cas just — _melts_ into it.

Well, unless Cas is in the middle of something, and then Dean usually gets shoved off without Cas even looking up (“I’m _working,_ Dean.”), but Dean kinda gets a kick out of that, too.

Anyway, it’s everything he’s spent ten years unaware or refusing to acknowledge he wanted from Cas, and now that he knows — now that he _has_ it — it’s amazing what it’s done for his overall life satisfaction.

Pamela gives him a knowing look.

“Mhm. That’s good. It’s been about a month, hasn’t it?”

Dean shrugs, like it’s nothing, like he’s not still waking up everyday, Cas plastered to his side or his chest or what-the-fuck-ever, and needing a couple of minutes to adjust to the fact that he’s allowed to just snuggle closer.

And sure, someday that might get old or probably even annoying, but right now, it’s a struggle to keep the dopey grin off his face whenever he thinks about it.

(He thinks about it a lot.)

“Somethin’ like that.”

“This is the first trip, isn’t it?”

Dean gives her a curious look.

“Uh, yeah, I guess. He doesn’t do a lot of these, but sometimes his agent will wanna meet with him or he’ll get invited to stuff. It’s his agent this time, I think.” He shrugs again. “It’s just for a few days.”

“Ah, the honeymoon interrupted.”

He reddens a little.

“It’s fine. I mean — we’ve known each other for _years._ It’s probably not even a standard, uh, honeymoon phase.”

Pam’s eyes twinkle.

“It’s okay to miss him, Dean.”

“Of course it is,” he blusters. Sam taught him that when it’s one of your favorite people, you really can miss not seeing them every day. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t, just — you know. It’s not like anything’s gonna happen.”

She blinks.

“What do you mean? Are you worried about the flights?”

“What? Oh. Uh, yeah. A little. You know how I feel about planes.”

Her brow furrows.

“Did you mean something else?”

“No?” he says, thrown, and then repeats himself, more sure. “No. I don’t — what else would there be?”

She tilts her head.

“You tell me. Do you think you have something else you’re concerned about, Dean? Take a moment. We’re not always consciously aware of things we worry about.”

Dean hesitates. Certainly, he feels a little — _agitated,_ maybe, but Pamela’s turned a friendly conversation about not admitting how gone on his boyfriend he is into an interrogation, so of course he’s getting antsy. That’s the problem with shrinks; sometimes you don’t have a problem until they make you _think_ you do.

As far as any anxiety he felt _before_ this — like when Cas first got the invite — well, Dean doesn’t love the idea of Cas speeding through the air in a metal death trap, or spacing out and getting into trouble in the middle of New York City; all standard stuff when someone you care about is traveling somewhere new and you can’t go with them. It felt like he had an ulcer the first few weeks Sammy was in California, and he still freaks out sometimes.

Anyway, Dean thinks, it’s a shame New York is so far and he can’t get time off work. He would have loved to drive Cas up there, enjoyed the comped accommodations, met some of his work friends. Cas seemed really excited about that; pretty much no one else is based out West, so he almost never gets to nerd out with anyone in person.

So yeah, that part’ll definitely be cool. Honestly, Dean didn’t even know Cas _was_ friends with other publishing types, but it makes sense. He’s glad for Cas, that it won’t be completely tedious, even if Dean can’t go with him.

And of course, he hopes he has fun.

“Uh, nope. Can’t really think of anything. Might be late to his meeting because he stops to listen to the street buskers,” Dean jokes, and though Pamela cracks a smile, she’s got that thoughtful look going still and it’s making him nervous.

“Some of them are pretty talented,” she finally says, and he chuckles, relaxing a little.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.”

“Well,” she offers, smiling. “Who knows? It might be nice to have some time to yourself. It sounds like you’ve been living in each other’s pockets since you resolved that part of your relationship.”

He opens his mouth, then shuts it.

“Uh,” he says finally. “I mean. Maybe. But we — we were like that, as kids, and it wasn’t a problem. Me and Cas are solid.”

Pamela looks surprised.

“I wasn’t implying you weren’t. Sorry, I could have said that better. Just trying to point out the plus sides; sometimes hobbies and other friends get neglected during the honeymoon phase.” She winks at him. “I thought it might be nice to have a chance to tend to those things without feeling like you’re missing out on time with Cas.”

“Oh. Right, yeah.” He laughs weakly. “You’re not wrong. People have been leavin’ us alone, mostly, since they’re just happy we figured out all of our drama, but I should probably get in touch.”

Pamela pauses just a fraction too long, considering.

“Do you feel like you did?” she asks, calm but decisive.

“What?”

“Do you feel like you figured out all your drama?”

“Um.” He swallows, confused and more than a little uncomfortable at where the conversation has gone. “Well, yeah. We’re together, now.”

“I see.” She looks like she wants to say something, but seems to decide against it, the smile returning. “I know that wasn’t easy, but I’m very proud of you both.”

Thankfully, she changes the subject before he has to respond to that or, you know, think about any of it — not that there’s a lot to think about, but come _on,_ that was practically traumatic for him, and he’s kind of glad it’s all over with — and asks him how Sam’s doing.

He sees her pen twitching across the pad while she does it, though, and even if he’s gotten used to that, now, a small part of him wonders what she wrote.

Cas is _never_ drinking again.

“Fuck,” he slurs into his pillow, squinting in the shadowy early morning light of the hotel room as he startles awake. He’s going to strangle whoever failed to think of closing the drapes last night.

(He, himself, doesn’t count, because it’s not his hotel room, and if Balthazar hadn’t goaded him into some juvenile drinking competition, followed by an offer of some recreational mood enhancement he couldn’t think of a good reason to turn down, he might have actually remembered what his own room number was and tried to get there.)

One of the bodies next to him groans.

“Please, _please,_ turn that off,” Hannah begs, unusually hoarse. It’s not unexpected. Hannah usually starts the evening with a flustered, “Oh, well, I suppose just one,” and finishes it with a, “Next round’s on me, my righteous brethren!” shouted across the bar. Balthazar is a _terrible_ influence on her.

And him, as well, Cas admits, finally processing the offensive sound which has woken them.

“Cassie,” Balthazar grumbles. “Of all the unchivalrous things — don’t just _ignore_ a lady’s request!”

Cas feels too much like homemade tomato salsa, mid-blend, to even snort, and he reaches beneath the blanket to pull his phone out of his pants.

“Hello?” he mumbles, peering over Hannah’s shoulder at the alarm clock. He doubts his agent is still planning on breakfast, given that Billie barely went home a half hour before them.

Of course, he’s not sure her body is actually affected by drugs or alcohol of any kind, so maybe—

“Cas?”

Cas jerks upward.

 _Dean._ Fuck. _Fuck._ He shouldn’t have answered; the moment Cas says more than three words, Dean’s going to know he was out half the night carousing and drinking and accepting mysterious pills from Balthazar, and then he’s going to _say_ it’s none of his business and he doesn’t care what Cas does and anyway, he better get to work, and then Cas is going to spend the next three days worrying the apartment will be half-empty by the time he gets back to it, and _god damn it,_ he’s never drinking again.

“Oh, hello, Dean,” he says, struggling to keep his voice clear of the evidence. Normal people sound groggy when you wake them up, even if all they did the previous night was sleep. It should be fine.

“ . . . Did I wake you up?”

Of course, normal people are usually awake by noon.

“Cassie, for god’s sake—” Balthazar starts, lifting his face out of the pillow, and Cas slaps a clumsy hand across his mouth, struggling to get out of the bed.

Hannah moans when he accidentally kicks her, and he flinches, racing for the door and sparing a resentful glance for the pristinely made up queen two fucking feet from where they both decided to crowd in on him.

“Sorry, no. I was just — I was brushing my teeth,” he says, the first thing that comes to mind, and slips into the hall, the door quietly snicking shut behind him.

There’s a long pause.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, sorry. Uh. You, um. You could have waited to answer.”

“Yes, well, I — I didn’t want to miss talking to you.”

“Oh.”

There’s another pause.

“Is everything alright?” Cas asks, although he’s pretty sure he’s been caught out.

It really _isn’t_ any of Dean’s business, if Cas wants to go out and enjoy himself with friends. There’s no way in hell he’ll be attending Comic Con with Dean and Charlie, but nor will he complain about whatever insane shenanigans they’re bound to get up to there. Cas having a fun night out with people he hardly ever gets to see should be fine.

And Dean probably _would_ be fine with it, except — except he’s _always_ disapproved of Cas’s partying, even if he’d never try and _stop_ him, exactly, and also Cas’s partying very rarely includes recreational drugs aside from marijuana and Dean’s still, well, _sensitive,_ about it.

Which is ludicrous. It’s just one night, not a week-long bender, and Cas is an adult _._

Still, ludicrous or not, it’s a big deal to Dean. And maybe Cas is blowing things out of proportion, because Dean probably won’t just _move out_ over it — but he doesn’t want to have to tiptoe around the apartment, shying away from Dean’s wrath for a week. He’s not used to it, anymore, and if he has his way, he’ll never have to be again.

Eventually, Dean answers.

“Hm? Yeah, sorry. I’m just — supervising a newbie on this engine check. Thought I’d call real quick and make sure you didn’t get eaten by sewer alligators.”

Cas relaxes. Dean does sound distracted, and he’s making jokes, which — well, Dean _always_ makes jokes, but he would have confronted Cas if there was a problem, surely.

“That’s not a real thing.”

“You don’t know that,” Dean shoots back, and Cas smiles.

“No, I don’t. I avoided gutters and manholes so I wouldn’t get eaten.”

Dean huffs a laugh.

“Yeah? Uh, what’d you do last night, anyway?”

Cas tenses.

“Uh. I had a working dinner with my agent, and then I — was tired, from the flight, so I . . . turned in early.”

There’s silence.

“So, uh. No . . . manholes, then?”

Cas squints.

“Dean. Is this you trying to segue into phone sex? Because I should remind you that you are currently at work.”

“What? No, I just — I — was — dumb joke.” Dean sounds frustrated, and Cas can feel his smile creeping back. It’s nice to know he’s missed. “Anyway, you’re right, I should — get back to it.”

“Alright. I’ll . . . talk to you later?” It’s stupid, but Cas reassures himself that most people in a new relationship get sad if they can’t talk every day. And given how long Cas had to wait for this particular relationship to develop, he likes to think he’s entitled to a more extended ‘honeymoon’ stage than most.

“Yeah. Later, Cas.”

And then Dean hangs up.

Cas tries not to be disappointed. Honeymoon stage or not, they’re not the kind of couple who exchanges romantic greetings and farewells, and certainly not over casual phone calls. Cas likes that, honestly. He likes _them,_ who they are together, and the fact that they _are_ together is enough.

He doesn’t need to be _told_ he’s loved.

He knows.

“Dean?”

“Uh, yeah, sorry, what?”

Benny’s staring at him, arms folded.

“You alright, brother?”

“Hell, yeah, peachy.”

Dean may actually be dying.

Benny looks unimpressed.

“You’ve been standin’ there, zombied out for about twenty minutes now. I know you got a stake in the place, but we've still got a job to do.”

“Yeah, of course, sorry, I just—”

He just — what? He’s not even sure.

Or he’s pretty sure, if muffled Cassies and feminine moans are anything to go by, but after what was apparently twenty full minutes, his brain is still refusing to finish computations.

“Benny,” he says suddenly, and Benny arches a brow. “When you — if you don’t — I mean, if you don’t really talk about — about whether you’re — then what are the rules, even? Do you — is it — like, does anything go?”

Dean can tell by the look on his friend’s face that he got exactly zero percent of that.

“What?”

“Nothing. Sorry. I’ll — yeah. I should — work. Now. Yeah.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He looks genuinely concerned, and Dean feels bad, because he shouldn’t have taken a break to call Cas, anyway, and work is no place for uncertain boy drama.

“Yeah, fine. Let’s see — the Civic, right?”

“Right,” Benny says slowly, and Dean hustles past him before he can ask any more questions.

Because as much as he doesn’t like it — fucking _hates_ it — Dean thinks he’s got an answer.

When he gets home, he drinks.

It doesn’t make sense, he knows. He’s got this — this huge fucking problem that he needs to figure out, and until he does, it’s making him sick to his stomach, and neither thing is really compatible with getting wasted.

And _yet._

Dean’s just no good at dealing with crises sober, he guesses. Maybe Cas was on to something in therapy.

Of course, what does Cas know, anyway? He was probably just feeling defensive and pulling things out of his ass. Kind of like when he says he’s ‘brushing his teeth,’ but he’s actually waking up in bed next to at least two other people.

Dean presses the bottle to his forehead, the label rumpled where stray droplets slid down from the lip.

 _Think before you drink,_ Pamela told him, once. _Sometimes you just have to feel your feelings, Dean, or else it all comes out at once, and it’s a lot worse_ _when it does._

Yeah, well — this feels pretty not-great. Enough that he’s not sure how it could be _worse._

He takes a swig straight out of the bottle, and tries to figure out what to do.

He’s pretty much past the point of coming up with alternative explanations, since every time he tries, he just comes back to _Cas lied._ It’s not like he’s seeing smoke and assuming fire; he saw the fucking fire, and it’s just naive to think Cas didn’t set it.

And hell, maybe it was naive to think he _wouldn’t._ Maybe Dean should have seen this coming. Maybe he was dumb to think that just because Cas didn’t really go out without him anymore, just because Cas seemed pretty happy to both get and satisfy his appetite at home, that it didn’t mean Cas wasn’t getting bored, or wouldn’t be interested in other opportunities should they arise.

After all, tearfully exchanged, ‘I’m yours’s do not a promise or expectation of fidelity make.

Even if Dean kind of meant it that way.

Dean puts on Dr. Sexy and settles in with the rest of the whiskey bottle — it was already half-empty, so it’s not that big of a deal — and thinks about it.

(And maybe takes some time to despair over the fact that he even _has_ to think about it.)

Cas calls, but Dean’s still not sure what to do, so when it rings at six, and then again at seven, he lets it go to voicemail.

By eleven, the whiskey’s all gone, Dean’s passed out on the sofa, and the only thing he’s managed to decide is that he _can’t_ decide anything.

Not until he talks to Cas.

Cas is both worried and disappointed when he can’t reach Dean that night, but he gets a text the next morning that Dean had Charlie over for a Star Trek marathon and left his phone in the bedroom.

He’s still disappointed, but he can’t begrudge Dean that; Cas is well-aware that Dean hasn’t seen as much of their friends since that conversation in the parking lot, and it’s entirely his fault, because he’s not about to sacrifice best-friends-hanging-out time for honeymoon-stage-activities time, which means that Dean’s schedule has been twice as full of Cas.

Still, it’s not like he’s _discouraged_ Dean from going out, or even tried that hard to encourage him to stay in, so he’s reasonably sure that makes Dean complicit. They’re allowed a little leeway, in the beginning, aren’t they?

So Dean should take this opportunity to see all their friends — it’s unfortunate Cas cannot do the same — and then, when Cas gets home, he won’t have to feel guilty about hoping he and Dean end up dividing their weekend between the sofa and the bed.

Of course, he thinks, allowing himself a big, stupid grin, it’s entirely likely Dean will try and _convince_ him they should do that before they’ve even made it home from the airport.

“Well, that’s a new one,” Billie remarks, offering Cas the glass of champagne he failed to accept from the waiter. He takes it, smile reduced to something small and sheepish.

“Sorry. I was — sidetracked.”

“Really? I would never have guessed.” Her tone is dry, but she looks amused. “Jessica tells me you’re living with Dean, now.”

Jessica is Billie’s personal admin and ruthlessly well informed; she probably has a copy of their lease on file.

“I am,” he says cautiously.

“Your productivity is down fifteen-percent.”

“You’re making that number up.”

She smirks.

“Perhaps.”

“I made all my deadlines.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t.”

He sighs.

“Am I that obvious?”

The smirk softens into a smile.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Castiel. You’ve certainly waited long enough.” She pauses, arching a brow. “Though I will say, you’re here to network, not daydream about domestic bliss.”

“That wasn’t it,” he mumbles, and she laughs.

“That gentleman just released a bestseller in Germany,” she says, tilting her head to the left. “We’re one of the publishers courting him for an American release.”

“I see.”

She offers an arm.

“Shall we?”

Cas smiles, looping his own arm around it and reluctantly setting aside thoughts of home.

“Alright. Lead the way.”

Dean’s sober for the first night in days when he goes to pick Cas up from the airport, and if he hadn’t had to drive, he would have done a few shots for courage.

As it stands, he’s acutely aware of his mind and body, thoughts running in nervous circles and stomach doing various acrobatics inside his torso. He’s managed to avoid any long conversations with Cas since — since _that_ happened, but tonight’s the night: Cas is coming home, and even more unsettling than the fact that _Dean_ doesn’t know what to say is the fact that he has no idea what _Cas_ is going to say.

Not that he hasn’t had plenty of time to speculate. The current worst-case scenario is that Cas confesses to a string of drug-fueled orgies in New York and announces that he and Dean will be breaking up so he can move there and do it full time.

The second worst-case scenario does not include a relocation to another state, but still consists of a breakup on the grounds that Cas misses his old lifestyle.

Which, if Dean had ever stopped to fucking think about it, would make a disturbing amount of sense.

He _has_ been thinking about it, now — better late than never, right? — and after a good deal of angsting and drinking and generally drowning in excruciating disappointment and insecurity, he’s come to at least one conclusion.

He doesn’t want to break up.

Will things be the same? Probably not.

Will they be a lot worse if Cas leaves him? Abso-fucking-lutely.

So Dean’s prepared to hear Cas out, and if Cas tries to pull any crazy shit like breaking up with him because he thinks that would somehow be doing right by Dean — well, Dean has a decently solid counter argument.

Still, he can feel his palms start to sweat as the Impala creeps through the arrivals lane, catching sight of Cas in front of Southwest. He’s got his hands tucked into his trench coat pocket, and even with a sweater underneath, Dean knows he’s probably not warm enough for the frigid January evening.

He pulls to a stop in front of Cas and climbs out, tentatively meeting Cas’s eye. The wide, gummy smile he gets in return feels like a floodlamp, and it’s all he can do not to look away.

He tries to muster up one of his own.

“Hello, Dean.”

And it’s funny, how Dean takes so many things for granted, always has, and while hell _yeah_ he’s noticed the way Cas has said his name before, he underestimated its significance to him.

Or how it feels when Cas says it, warm and familiar and just the way he always does — even though they both know how he spent his free time in New York.

Dean ducks his head, hoisting Cas’s suitcase into his arms instead of Cas himself, like a part of him wants to, even though he doesn’t know what this means for them yet.

“Hey there, Cas. How’d the flight go?”

There’s a beat of silence as Dean meticulously tucks the suitcase into Baby’s trunk, still shying away from Cas’s gaze, and he wonders if this is it, if they’re gonna start this conversation right here in the Arrivals lane, light from all the blinking hazards warping whatever truths might be in their faces.

“As bad as the flights always go,” Cas says carefully. “However, I seem to recall you had a particular method of making one forget the trials of an airport.”

Five days ago, Dean would have laughed, would have insisted on stopping at the diner to feed Cas, lingering over his own meal and pretending to be oblivious to all the heated looks Cas would send his way; he would have suggested a beer and some TV when they got home, spending most of an episode of whatever marveling at Cas’s restraint when he so clearly wanted to jump him. Five days ago, they’d been about a month into their relationship and Cas was bizarrely shy about actually initiating anything physical, and as desperate as he was for Cas, Dean was enjoying it immensely — if only because Cas was still _obvious,_ and Dean fully intended to follow through on the teasing.

Suddenly, all of Cas’s reticence was less funny.

“Somethin’ like that,” Dean mumbles, taking a deep, quiet breath, and shutting the trunk. “You all set?”

Cas tilts his head.

“Yes.”

Dean nods.

“We better get outta the way.” He hastens into the driver’s seat, and a moment later, Cas gets in.

“And how are you? You were busy with Charlie. I didn’t hear from you much,” Cas adds casually, and Dean shrugs.

“You know how a marathon goes.” He forgets to answer the first part, and then decides it’s just as well, because he’s spent most of Cas’s absence trying to figure out how they’re even gonna talk about this, and now that Cas is here, he’s suddenly pretty sure he needs more time.

Maybe he should wait for Cas to bring it up?

“How _is_ Charlie? I haven’t spoken to her in a couple weeks.”

“Oh, yeah, no, she’s good. She’s . . . Charlie. As always.”

“That’s good.”

Dean can _feel_ Cas’s eyes on him, and despite his best efforts, he’s bracing himself for Cas to just blurt out “So, Dean, I fucked a bunch of people in New York and we need to talk.”

It doesn’t happen.

They drive in silence, mostly, Cas just sitting in the passenger’s seat, watching Dean, and Dean fighting not to steal glances because he _knows_ Cas is watching him and will definitely catch him if he does, and he’s mildly terrified of what will happen once they make eye contact.

Dean pulls into his reserved space and kills the engine, and Cas finally looks away, opening his door and climbing out. Dean follows, meeting him at the trunk, where Cas stares at him some more while he unlocks it and props it open.

“Somethin’ on my face?” he asks, anxious, although it’s kind of a dick move; staring at Dean’s face has been one of Cas’s favorite pasttimes for almost twenty years and for the most part, they don’t talk about it.

Cas simply tilts his head, watching while Dean hoists the suitcase onto the ground and slings the messenger bag over his shoulder, and Dean wonders if he’s going to bother responding, or if maybe he’s trying to suss out where Dean’s at as far as his business trip shenanigans go.

“No. But there should be.”

Dean fumbles the suitcase handle, and can’t help but laugh.

“Jesus, with lines like that, how did you ever get laid?” he asks, and then winces, because that’s a little too fucking close to home — but Cas just smiles.

“I only use those kinds of lines on you.”

“You callin’ me easy?” Dean shoots back, because it’s instinct, it’s normal, it’s how it’s _supposed_ to be.

Cas grimaces.

“Unfortunately, no. If anything, you’re the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Dean smirks, because _really, man?_ but Cas just squints at him.

“Oh,” he says abruptly, and manages a pretty steely glare for all of five seconds before he starts snickering.

“S’what I thought,” Dean says, and begins pulling the suitcase along, chuckling in spite of himself.

Because yeah, they’ve still got this talk hanging over their heads, and yeah, Dean feels like he’s been sucker-punched every time he thinks about why that talk has to happen in the first place — but still, he’s more sure than ever that he was right.

That the most important thing, whatever happens, is that they stay together.

To Cas’s surprise and disappointment, Dean’s idea of welcoming Cas home includes one-hundred-percent less sex than he’d supposed, and a lot of things he hadn’t even considered, such as meticulously reheated leftover dinner and a mug of sleepy-time tea.

At first, Cas just assumes this is Dean making sure all travel-related stress and fatigue is fully alleviated, all the better for staying up late and making a mess of the sheets. It’s not exactly what he was expecting or hoping for when he’d ducked into the airport restroom and hastily freshened up before heading out to Arrivals, having anticipated being shoved up against the front door for a quick round one the moment they were home, but he can see how that was naive fantasy. Dean’s not going to lay a hand on him if he thinks Cas might for any reason not be up for it.

And Cas appreciates that.

But then Dean turns on the TV, navigating to a new dolphin documentary on Netflix, and opts to lean back against one of the sofa arms, feet a depressing distance away from Cas’s own when he reluctantly mirrors him on the other side.

Cas isn’t childish enough to ask for cuddles, though, and when Dean seems wholeheartedly focused on the documentary, he perks up; clearly, this is just Dean being a tease, because Dean still labors under the misapprehension that Cas is the owner of the most demanding libido in existence, and probably thinks that after nearly five days without sex, he’s desperate for it. Cas has a number of inconclusive theories about _why_ Dean enjoys teasing him, but since Cas kind of enjoys it, too, and Dean never takes it very far and gives in immediately once pressed, he can wait.

Besides, he’s woken up uncomfortably cold and unsettlingly alone four mornings in a row after restless, mildly fitful nights; he kind of _is_ desperate for the contact.

Except Dean watches the entire documentary without even looking over at Cas, and when it’s done, he shuts the TV off and asks:

“You gonna shower before bed?”

Cas blinks.

“Uh. Yes?” He was planning to, anyway, but now that he thinks about it, Dean is a closet germaphobe, so maybe he’s a little reluctant to get down and dirty with all the strange airport cooties clinging to Cas’s person, and thus quite reasonably wants Cas to have a shower before he—

“Okay, cool. If I’m asleep by the time you’re done, then good night.” He offers Cas a small smile. “Good to have you back, man.”

And then he disappears into the bedroom.

Cas stares after him for a long moment, straining his ears for the rustle of Dean changing clothes and the telltale _whump_ of him climbing into bed. A moment later, the light goes out.

He waits a little longer, just in case Dean is going to reappear and laugh at him, in which case Cas will laugh, too, because it’s not a bad joke, if it really is just a joke.

But Cas is still sitting there five minutes later when Dean starts to snore, and then it’s clear that nothing will be happening tonight.

Which is fine. Dean’s not obligated, and he probably had a long week, and Cas is actually pretty tired, too, should be responsible and head to bed after his shower as well.

And that’s exactly what he does; he turns the water too hot and ruthlessly scrubs down, and then he dresses for bed and curls up in his spot, carefully keeping quiet, so as not to wake Dean.

And through it all, he tries not to think about how Dean hasn’t touched him once since he got home.

Dean’s gone by the time Cas wakes up.

Objectively, Cas understands that Dean has a job with set hours, and just because Cas has been away for five days, that doesn’t mean he can miss work.

Still, Cas went to bed early, and he’s up early, enough that he thinks Dean could have snuck in a few minutes to spend with him, and either way, he feels grumpy about it; _five days._

Dean has spoiled him, this last month, and for once in his life, Cas doesn’t even have to worry about getting used to it.

That thought, at least, has him burrowing back into Dean’s pillow with a small smile. He’s not happy, waking up alone, and it was unsettling, the lack of physicality from Dean last night, but there’s always later.

Because if Cas thinks about it, Dean’s been ridiculously, flatteringly handsy the entirety of that month, enough that sometimes Cas has to summon every ounce of willpower to tell him ‘not now’ just to get all his work done. Dean probably worried once he touched him, he wouldn’t be able to stop, and Cas would get too worn out and Dean would be exhausted at work, and no matter how much Cas had been looking forward to eager and enthusiastic reunion sex, he’s rational enough to know Dean was probably right.

In any case, Cas had better procure some coffee and have his first look at the clever young German fellow’s book.

He spends most of the day this way, though as the afternoon wears on, he has one eye fixed on the clock, ever-conscious of Dean’s impending arrival. He has the fleeting thought that perhaps Dean spent yesterday in much the same state, but then he feels stupid and reminds himself that they are two grown men and five days is probably only a big deal if you’re as embarrassingly clingy as you are hopelessly besotted, and Dean is neither, even if he _does_ love Cas.

Still, Cas is well-accustomed to the disparity in their feelings, and he can freely admit that his excitement for Dean to arrive home and have dinner and watch TV and catch up (and then _finally_ fall into bed), has him hardly able to focus the nearer six o’ clock draws.

Although — he’ll want to tread carefully with regards to the ‘catching up’. His commitment to never drinking again had worn off by the next night, as it usually does, and he went out twice more with Bal and Hannah and the others before the trip ended. And he still maintains there’s nothing _wrong_ with that, that it’s hardly different from convention misadventures with Charlie or roadtrip shenanigans with Sam, but . . . it’s probably better if Dean doesn’t know about it. They don’t fight much, these days, and Cas doesn’t want to jeopardize his newfound bliss over something that, in the long run, doesn’t even matter.

It’s around four-thirty that Cas snacks on one of the freshly-stocked greek yogurt cups, and fifteen minutes later he rinses the empty container and puts it in the recycling bin.

It’s habit, and Cas barely pays any attention as he does it, but the brief glance he spares into the nearly full bin hits him about five seconds later, and then he’s pivoting, striding back to have a closer look, because if he’s not mistaken—

There. Two empty bottles of Jack Daniels whiskey, right at the top of the bin.

He stares, foot tense on the pedal to keep the lid open while he tries to understand what he’s seeing, because when he left five days ago, there had been one open, a little over half-full.

Dean went through well over a liter of whiskey in the five days Cas was gone.

He blinks, foot still tensed while his mind works.

 _Why_?

Dean likes to drink, certainly, but he only drinks hard liquor in _that_ quantity when there’s a serious problem.

And yet, he didn’t say anything to Cas.

Which — besides being his best friend, Cas is his _boyfriend._ They’ve resolved their issues; what on earth could have happened that Dean wouldn’t even have sullenly alluded to it? Could that be why he left Cas alone last night? Something happened, something serious enough to prompt the worst binge he’s gone on in a very long time, and it was all he could do to feign normalcy until bedtime?

If so — _why didn’t he tell Cas?_

Cas straightens, letting the lid fall shut as he abruptly recalls why he barely heard from Dean while he was away.

 _Supposedly,_ he was having a Star Trek marathon with Charlie; and maybe they did.

But late-night marathons in the middle of the work week are odd, even for them, and given the empty bottles — perhaps it _isn’t_ a problem with Dean. Perhaps it’s a problem with _Charlie._ Charlie is Dean’s closest friend, like a sister to him, and if there was something serious going on with her, he would absolutely drop everything to watch a favorite show and drink themselves into oblivion.

And depending on what that something was, there’s a very good chance he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, tell Cas about it, no matter how much it was eating at him.

Charlie is one of Cas’s best friends, too, and this presents another serious problem — but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a tiny bit relieved.

Still, if Charlie’s hurting, then Dean is, too, and Cas resolves to be as inconspicuously sensitive as possible when Dean gets home.

The mystery solved, Cas pulls out his phone and texts Charlie, asking if she wants to catch up over coffee on Monday. He’s not going to pry — as close as they are, he won’t be hurt if she doesn’t feel like she can tell him — but he should make it clear that he’s there for her, if she needs anything.

He gets an enthusiastic thumbs up in response, and that settled, Cas reluctantly gets back to work, impatient for the sound of Dean’s arrival.

When Dean was twelve, Sammy and Jo made each other friendship bracelets.

Normally, Dean wouldn’t want anything to do with this, would shudder to think what his Dad would say if he popped in for a visit and Dean had some fancy combination of rainbow thread wrapped around his wrist, but Cas was busy attending one of his brothers’ graduation ceremonies and the weather was too crappy to be outside either way, and since Dean had zero interest in bad daytime television . . .

Well, what else was he gonna do?

Besides, it’s not like his Dad would know if Dean just _made_ one, so long as he didn’t ever _wear_ it, so really — no harm done.

The thing is, Dean was actually pretty good at it. He generally tried to avoid girly craft stuff, if he could help it (crap they made you do in art class didn’t count), but despite his inexperience, he decided to take a crack at one of the more complicated weaves. He was _twelve,_ after all; how hard could it be?

Not that hard, actually, so long as he focused and was careful, and with the dark and light blue and white and black threads he picked out, the bracelet he made looked kickass, if he did say so himself — which he didn’t, because he still wasn’t sure if he should be embarrassed or not at being good at this, but anyway.

Jo and Sammy were gratifyingly jealous.

“Woah, Dean!” Sam exclaimed, carefully touching the smooth weave under Dean’s watchful eye. Dumb trinket or not, Dean was kind of proud of it, and he didn’t want anybody messing it up. “What are you gonna do with it?”

Jo was eyeing it very wistfully, and normally, Dean would have tried to be a good sort-of-big-brother and given it to her, but he’d got to thinking, as he chose his colors and carefully twisted the threads around each other, and well, maybe he could make her another one on the next rainy day.

“’S’a friendship bracelet or whatever, isn’t it? I’m gonna give it to Cas.”

Jo perked up, surprisingly.

“Ooh, it’s gonna look awesome with his eyes!”

Dean wasn’t so sure, because Cas’s eyes were _crazy_ blue, and maybe the bracelet would kind of fade into the background in comparison — but he’d also be lying if he said he didn’t think of that when he picked the colors.

Of course, as the hours passed, Dean started to get a little bit . . . nervous.

See, one of the best parts about Cas, is he mostly didn’t get embarrassed. Like, sure, he’d get real self-conscious and upset if you made him think he was being weird or did something wrong, or didn’t know something he should have, but as long as Dean didn’t make a big deal out of it, Cas didn’t really pay attention to unspoken rules like twelve-year-old boys not wearing bracelets. If he wanted to do something, and _he_ didn’t see a problem with it, he pretty much just did it, and that — well, Dean envied and admired that.

That being said — what if this was one of those times Cas _did_ get embarrassed? What if Cas told Dean he didn’t want it, or worse, what if he accepted it and then didn’t _wear_ it?

And Dean wasn’t even sure why he cared, because he only made it so he wouldn’t be sitting by himself, bored out of his mind. But now that he’d made it, with Cas in mind, and it had turned out so nice, too — he _really_ liked the idea of Cas wearing it, and he’d be kinda hurt if Cas _didn’t_.

By the time Dean finally saw the light go on in the treehouse, he was seriously having second thoughts. After several hours of worried contemplation, he was more desperate than ever to see Cas wear the bracelet he’d made him — but he was also terrified that Cas would refuse.

He climbed the ladder with shaking legs, the bracelet feeling so heavy in his pocket it might as well have been made out of platinum and diamonds, and when he made it to the top, he barely remembered to smile.

“Hey there, Cas.”

Cas beamed back, putting down his book and scooting closer to the entrance to offer Dean a hand up. Dean didn’t need it, never had, but he took the hand anyway, pulling himself through the opening and into the treehouse. He hoped Cas didn’t notice his palms sweating.

“Hello, Dean.”

“How was, uh, how was your brother’s graduation thing?”

Cas shrugged.

“Boring. We had to sit for a long time.”

“Oh. That sucks. Sorry,” Dean said, and he meant it. Cas was way better at sitting still and quiet than Dean was, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it.

“At least it’s over now.” Cas inspected him curiously. “What did you do today?”

“Uh. Not — not a lot. I just kinda . . .” And right then, right when Dean could feel his courage starting to fail him, he had a _brilliant_ idea. “Actually, uh, since you weren’t around, I hung out with Sammy and Jo.”

Cas looked wistful.

“Oh. I bet you guys had fun.”

“Yeah, I guess. It rained all day, so they wanted to stay in and make these bracelets.”

Cas tilted his head.

“Bracelets?”

“Yeah.” Dean wasn’t quite brave enough to say the words ‘friendship bracelet.’ “Anyway, I made one, too, ‘cause why not, right?”

Cas nodded.

“Right.”

“Do you — do you wanna see it?” Dean asked, carefully watching his reaction, and Cas perked up.

“Yes, please.”

Taking a deep breath, Dean fished it out of his pocket and casually held out his palm for Cas to inspect it.

Cas’s eyes got big.

“Wow,” he breathed. “You _made_ this?”

Dean flushed.

“Uh, yeah. I mean, I haven’t done anything like this before, so it’s not very good—” Dean started, a blatant lie, but Cas just shook his head.

“It’s — it’s _amazing._ Did you pick the colors?”

“Yeah,” Dean said, feeling way too shy to tell Cas _why._

“They look great,” Cas enthused, fingers hovering in the air reverently.

Dean’s face was burning, but it wasn’t a bad feeling at all.

“Well, uh — do you — do you want it?”

Cas drew back, startled.

“What?”

“I mean, you can have it, if — if you want. It’s not a big deal,” he hastened to add.

“Really? You — you’ll let me have it?”

“Sure.”

Cas positively lit up, and Dean’s stomach experienced a strange, swooping sensation.

“ _Thank you,_ Dean,” he said earnestly, gingerly picking up the bracelet, and Dean’s stomach did the weird thing again when he saw how it looked, even just cradled in Cas’s palm.

“Here,” he said gruffly, no longer able to meet Cas’s eyes. “Lemme help you put it on.”

He fumbled the tie, a little bit, but Cas didn’t seem to notice, just patiently held out his wrist while Dean fastened it, knotting it one extra time for good measure.

And then he sat back to admire his handiwork, and started blushing all over again.

Jo was right. It looked really, really good on Cas, not that Dean was any judge of such things, and there was something about knowing he’d spent hours working on it, painstakingly layering the thread together, and seeing it secured around Cas’s skinny wrist that just — Dean felt all full and warm and proud, like he had after the first time he’d made a pie on his own and then eaten half of it in one sitting.

“It looks really cool, man,” he managed, and Cas gave him a big, toothy grin.

“Thank you,” he said again, and in that moment, it was a struggle for Dean not to collect his goodbye hug early.

But then Monday came, and Cas showed up at the bus stop, eyes red and tired, wrist bare. Dean knew, because that’s pretty much the first place his eyes went to, having eagerly awaited getting to see Cas show up to school proudly wearing the bracelet Dean made him — if only because it wound up looking so cool, and the other kids didn’t always realize how cool Cas was, and Dean just thought it would be nice if they could see it.

Except the bracelet wasn’t there.

“Where’s your bracelet?” Dean blurted, forgetting himself, and Cas froze, eyes widening.

“Um.” He looked down, which — that was kind of weird, wasn’t it? Cas always looked Dean in the eye. Even when Dean wasn’t looking _back,_ Cas was usually staring at his face. “I decided to leave it at home. I didn’t — I didn’t want anything to happen to it.”

Dean stared. Cas’s voice — it sounded _really weird,_ and he still wasn’t looking at Dean.

And somehow, right then, Dean knew Cas was _lying._

“Oh. Okay,” he mumbled, and then quickly got on the bus, because he was pretty sure he knew why Cas was lying. Cas had had all of Sunday to think about it, to look at that bracelet and decide he didn’t really want it after all, and he was just trying to protect Dean’s feelings with some dumb excuse about keeping it safe.

Dean’s eyes stung, and _god,_ he felt like a little kid. He never should have tried to give it to Cas in the first place, should have _known_ Cas wouldn’t really want it. It was a _bracelet,_ for God’s sake. What on earth was he thinking? If _Dean_ didn’t want to wear a bracelet, Cas probably wouldn’t, either.

But even knowing that, even if he thought he should understand that, he didn’t. Because if _Cas_ had been the one to make Dean a bracelet — well, Dean would have worn it, even if some part of him thought it was lame or was worried he’d get teased. He would have worn long sleeves if his Dad came to visit, of course, because he’s not an idiot, but _he would have worn it._

That was fine, though. Cas was allowed to make his own decisions.

Dean just wished he wouldn’t lie about it. What, did he think Dean was some kind of baby? Some sissy with so many fragile feelings that he was gonna cry just because Cas didn’t want to wear his bracelet?

Dean was sure he’d never felt more embarrassed in his _life._

So he avoided Cas all morning, hardly said two words to him, even though it seemed like Cas was getting increasingly distraught, and by the time lunch came around, Dean was scrambling for some excuse not to sit with him, because he was weak and pathetic and if he had to spend thirty minutes staring at Cas’s unadorned wrist and knowing Cas thought his gift was stupid and probably thought Dean was stupid, too — he actually _might_ cry.

He was just about to make up some excuse, maybe pretend he had food poisoning so he could hide in the bathroom, when Cas’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open, transfixed by something behind Dean.

Dean turned, and there Anna was, crossing the track that separated the middle school from the high school.

He waited, hurt momentarily forgotten in the face of this curious occurrence; he couldn’t remember Anna ever walking over before.

“Cas,” she called, grinning, and Cas gave Dean a quick, inscrutable look before he darted forward to meet her. Not wanting to miss anything, Dean followed, and they met her at the edge of the track.

And then Anna held out her upturned fist, knuckles all scraped up, sort of like how Dad’s got after he went on a hunt and the fugitive ‘gave him trouble,’ or even sometimes when he came back from a bar; and when she opened it, there was Cas’s bracelet, two ends fraying, Dean’s careful double-knot still intact on one side.

Cas shot him an anxious look, but it was too late.

“Why does she have your bracelet?” Dean demanded.

“Uh, well, I . . .” he started, glancing frantically between them, and Anna looked puzzled.

“Some freshman boys cornered him after church yesterday and stole it.” She looked smug. “ _I_ got it back.”

Dean stared at Cas, mind reeling.

“You said — you told me you left it at home on _purpose._ ”

“Dean, I-”

“You _lied._ Why’d you lie to me, Cas? I would have understood! Instead — instead you made me think—”

Oh, God. There was no way Dean was going to admit what he thought. He was too angry and embarrassed to even be _relieved._

“Dean, please, I just—”

“You just _what_ , Cas?” he nearly yelled, and Anna frowned at him, Cas silent and miserable beside her.

“He was afraid you’d be angry, Dean,” she said dryly.

“It was _so nice,_ ” Cas whispered, and Dean was horrified to see tears in his eyes. “It was amazing, and then you even let me have it, and then I lost it like that, and I was sure you’d be furious, and you’d wish you never gave it to me in the first place—”

Dean didn’t know if he wanted to hug Cas or shove him over. On the one hand, it felt really nice to hear how much Cas liked it, after he’d spent the whole morning thinking Cas thought it (and by association, _Dean_ ) was dumb, but on the other hand, Dean _did_ spend the whole morning thinking that.

“That’s no reason to _lie._ Even if I was gonna be angry, you should have told me the truth! And I wouldn’t have been, okay? I mean, I would have, because those guys are jerks, but I wouldn’t have been angry at _you_! Probably would’ve just promised to make you a new one,” he grumbles. He wouldn’t have been _happy_ about it, no, but something in him was determined now. Cas was gonna wear a bracelet Dean had made him, one way or the other.

Cas blinked watery eyes at him.

“But it’s so much work.”

 _I made it for you in the first place!_ Dean nearly shouted, but he couldn’t really admit that, so he just huffed.

“So? If you liked it that much, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.”

And then Cas’s lip trembled, and a couple of tears fell, and Dean’s shoulders sagged, because he hadn’t meant to make Cas _cry._

“Dude — stop that—” he mumbled, shuffling over and grabbing the bracelet out of Anna’s hand on his way. “Just — look, don’t cry, okay? I’m not — I promise not to be mad anymore. Now gimme your wrist.”

Cas sniffed, drawing himself up and sticking out his arm with hopeful eyes. Dean made quick work of the knots, not quite able to meet Cas’s teary blue eyes.

“There,” he announced, smoothing a thumb along the new knots before letting go. “If anybody gives you trouble again, I’ll kick their ass.”

Anna let out a really funny-sounding cough at that, but Dean ignored her, because he wasn’t done.

“But you can’t lie to me, Cas,” he told him. “Even if you think I’m gonna be mad. Whatever it is, we’ll — we’ll figure it out together, okay?”

Cas stared back with wide eyes, before he quickly nodded.

“Okay.”

“Okay, good.” Dean took a deep breath, and nodded at Anna. “Thanks for gettin’ it back.”

Anna rolled her eyes.

“You’re very welcome, Dean,” she said kindly, and even though Dean kinda felt like she was making fun of him, she _did_ go get the bracelet back, so whatever.

In the end, Anna went back to the high school and Dean and Cas enjoyed their lunch together, all slights forgiven, and Cas went on to wear that bracelet for over a year before it fell apart.

And every time Dean noticed it, he felt that same proud rush of joy, just like his very first pie.

Still. They were who they were, and that might have been the first time Dean remembered Cas lying to avoid Dean’s anger, but it certainly wasn’t the last.

Dinner tonight is a quiet affair; Dean makes distracted small-talk, steeling himself for the inevitable Conversation, and when it doesn’t seem to be forthcoming, he outright asks about Cas’s trip to New York.

But Cas just talks about the meeting, and the party, and the German writer they want a contract with, and when Dean asks if he had any fun with his colleagues, Cas just shrugs and says they went out to dinner most of the nights.

He doesn’t look at Dean when he does it, though.

They watch TV, and they don’t touch, and even though Dean can _feel_ Cas’s eyes on him, Cas still doesn’t mention it.

And Dean — Dean can’t help but wonder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> Recreational Drug Use: Cas takes unspecified pills on several nights while partying with friends in NYC.
> 
> Drinking as a coping mechanism: Assuming Cas cheated on him, Dean drinks an excessive amount of liquor as he tries to figure out how to handle it.
> 
> Implied bullying in childhood: In a flashback, Dean makes Cas a friendship bracelet. Cas fails to turn up to school wearing it, and when Anna brings it over at lunch, it is revealed that some high school freshman boys stole it from him at church.
> 
> Suspected cheating: Dean misunderstands what he hears on a phone call with Cas and assumes Cas cheated. Cas did not.


	2. it's hard to love someone who can't be loved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: some subtext about John Winchester's A+ parenting in flashbacks (details in the end notes), discussions of sexuality in therapy (details in the end notes), the proposal of an open relationship (again, though, Dean and Cas do not take advantage of this), references to past cheating (Dean's ex cheated on him in a flashback), please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Chapter title taken from _Cruel_ , by Foxes.
> 
> A note: Any time I reference sexuality in my stories, I am not trying to make blanket statements or negative judgments about anything, and I apologize if that is ever ambiguous.
> 
> Thank you for reading! ♡

Cas is starting to wonder if Dean knows.

It’s not that he doesn’t think Dean is stressed over whatever problems Charlie is having, but Dean is behaving _so_ strangely, particularly with regards to Cas, that he has to consider there’s something else at play.

Such as Dean knowing — or at least suspecting — what kind of fun Cas had in New York.

The thing is, Cas didn’t do anything wrong. And if that is the case, if Dean knows Cas went out partying, is pretty sure he took some shit while he did it, then right now he’s _punishing_ Cas.

Which isn’t a surprise. Dean gets pissed at people, and then he stays pissed until some other emotion overtakes it or you make it up to him, and Cas learned a long time ago that there’s nothing he can do to avoid it except hope Dean doesn’t find out.

It would appear that he’s found out.

That would explain the lack of touching, and the subtle redirection to Cas’s work trip at dinner. Normally, Dean would be more aggressive, more on edge, but his tiredness and strangely subdued demeanor can easily be attributed to whatever’s going on with Charlie.

Still, tempered by his worry for Charlie or not, Cas doesn’t feel like he deserves this, not the punishment or the anxiety while he tried to figure out what was going on. Did he do something Dean didn’t like? Yes. Does Dean have any business getting angry about it, enough that he takes it out on Cas?

_Absolutely not._

But even though Cas knows that — even though Cas would have said he’d trained himself out of the compulsion to try and appease him, at times like these — the fact remains that Cas manages to wake up before Dean leaves the next morning and _still_ gets nothing for his troubles.

Dean smiles at him, an unsettling blankness in it, and tells him to have a nice day from twenty feet across the room.

And then he leaves.

Cas has no fucking clue what to do.

Drama with Dean aside, he's relieved to find Charlie in good spirits that afternoon, already perched at a high table by the window with her coffee in hand and apparently very excited about the way the upcoming Moondoor campaign is coming together.

It’s difficult to imagine her so distressed that she needed Dean to drink himself stupid and watch TV in solidarity less than a week ago, but Charlie is a bright soul, even in the worst of times, and much of this could be an act for his benefit.

He listens to her detail this campaign’s story — “Yay, you get the spoilers, since you’re boring and won’t come to play with us!” — and then he listens to her enthuse about a new costume source she’s found, and the surge in both recruits and vendors.

It’s all very interesting, though he remains uncomfortable with the idea of dressing up and playing pretend with them — honestly, he’s pretty sure he’ll fuck it up or make it awkward — and by the time nearly half an hour has passed, he’s almost forgotten his purpose in coming here.

Almost.

“So,” he starts, pausing for a sip of his refill. “I was sad I missed the Star Trek marathon.”

Charlie furrows her brow, and Cas hastens forward, worried she’ll think Dean broke her confidence.

“Well, and I was also sad Dean hardly called me at all, but I understand that Spirk comes first for you both.”

She blinks.

“Uh. Yep. OTP, dude. I never pass up a Star Trek marathon,” she chirps, although there’s something off about it all. “Sorry Dean didn’t, uh, call you. While . . . we were having a marathon?”

It comes out like a question, and Cas is pretty sure it can be translated as: _that’s all you know about, right?_

“I wasn’t gone that long. And marathons are important.”

She nods, head bobbing as she blinks at the table.

“Right. Still, I mean, he could have called you.”

He smiles wryly.

“Please don’t feel guilty. I’m aware we’ve been hard to reach. I’m glad you guys got to hang out, although — I’ve missed you as well.”

Charlie finally looks up, smile bright, leg bouncing beneath the table.

“Aw, Cas. I missed you, too.”

“You’ve been well, right?” he prompts, searching her face. There’s something undeniably strained in her expression, but it softens at the question.

“Yup, Cas. I’ve been really good. Been pretty busy myself. It’s tough being queen,” she jokes, lifting her shoulders. “Aaaand — things are good with you?”

He hesitates, then nods. Charlie seems determined not to share, which is her prerogative, of course; He wishes he could be more useful to people in these situations, but mostly, Cas just hopes she’s okay.

“Things are good,” he says, reflexively, though at the moment, they really aren’t. Cas has determined that if Dean has a problem, he can be the one to say so, because _once again,_ Cas didn’t do anything wrong.

Despite the justness of that approach, it does mean things are Not Good for the time being.

“Cool, cool.” She pauses. “And Dean? Things are good with Dean?”

Cas tries not to make a face. Is he that transparent?

“Yes,” he says simply, then jokes, “Better than I ever expected, certainly.”

And it’s true, minus the last few days.

She relaxes, leg finally going still.

“Oh, good. We all worry about you two.”

Cas frowns.

“I don’t think you have to worry anymore.”

“Oh, no, I just — ha, you know.”

He doesn’t, but Charlie doesn’t seem to want to elaborate. She clears her throat, steepling her fingers.

“So! You guys are still coming to game night on Wednesday, right?”

“Of course. What should we bring?”

“We-ell, I was kinda hoping I could get you to make this dessert I wanted to try?”

Charlie can’t bake for shit, as Dean would — and often does — say, not because she really _can’t_ (the woman is a genius; she could if she wanted to), but because she can’t quite resist trying to multi-task on her various devices, and the minutes tend to get away from her.

“What kind?”

“Strawberry biscuits with mint cream?”

“That doesn’t sound too hard.” Cas doesn’t care much for cooking or baking, but you don’t spend a huge chunk of your childhood in Ellen Harvelle’s kitchen and not know _how._

“Sweet. It’s come up on my dash like eight billion times and I’ve been _dying_ to try it.” Charlie’s already on her phone, tapping away, and a few moments later, Cas’s goes off. “Okie dokie, recipe sent.”

Cas trusts that it’s been received, and they fall back into conversation for a few more minutes before Charlie has to leave.

She gives him a big hug at the door.

“See you Wednesday, Cas. And tell Dean to give me a call, would you?”

“Will do.”

He’s sorry there’s nothing he can do for her, not even provide a friendly ear, but at least she has Dean.

Still, he squeezes her extra tight before he lets her go.

“Winchester,” Charlie barks the moment she picks up.

“Yeah, Cas said you wan—”

“Why the _hell_ did you tell your boyfriend we were marathoning Star Trek the whole time he was gone?!” she hisses, and _oh._

“Shit, you didn’t tell him we didn’t, right?”

“Of course not!” she scoffs. “But Cas is _also_ my friend, and I don’t appreciate having to _lie_ to him, especially when you didn’t even warn me! What gives, dude?”

God _damn_ it. He should have thought of this; it was one of the first rules of lying that his Dad taught him: _don’t involve anybody in your lies that isn’t already involved in your lie_ _s._

“It’s, uh. It’s complicated, Charlie—”

“Oh, _heck no._ You two have been _complicated_ for the last fifteen years! Don’t you _dare_ re-complicate things, Dean!”

He rubs the heel of his palm against his eye, sighing.

“Look, it’s fine, okay?”

“Really? It is? Awesome.” There’s a pause, and then a shrill, “ _Now tell me why the hell it’s fine._ ”

God, what is he even supposed to say? Cas went to New York, probably slept with half a dozen of his colleagues, and now he’s trying to pretend it didn’t happen?

Yeah, how about _no._

“I just — it was . . . awkward. To admit what I was really doing.”

“Right. Cool story. And what was it you were doing?”

He hesitates.

_The more truth your lie has, the better, son._

“I was wallowing.”

“ _Wallowing_? About _what_?”

“Cas bein’ gone.” That part’s kind of true; Dean was afraid, still is a little bit, that this all just meant Cas was gonna leave.

Though Dean’s pretty sure he won’t.

Unfortunately, he’s also pretty sure he’s not going to tell Dean about it, either, which — _why not_? Does he just — does he think it’s not a problem? But if _that’s_ the case, then he wouldn’t be lying about it, and Dean thinks he _is_ acting a little weird, just a shade off, so he must know there’s _something_ wrong here.

God. What a fucking mess.

“Okay. Fair. You _are_ a giant baby. But he says you hardly called him, Dean. If you missed him so much, why wouldn’t you _talk_ to him?”

“Well, you know. I . . . drink, a little, when I wallow.”

They both know he drinks enough to fell an elephant when he wallows, but he figures the understatement just makes him look more sincere.

There’s a long pause.

“Ugh. So you missed your boyfriend so much you got super duper drunk and then you wouldn’t _call_ him because you didn’t want to get in trouble for getting super duper drunk? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Maybe,” he hedges, but honestly, he’s just fucking relieved Charlie seems to be buying it.

“Fine. I will keep your secret this time, but only because you’re a dumbass. You’re going last on Wednesday, by the way.”

“What? You’re not even gonna let me roll?”

“Nope!”

“Okay, but — just the first game, right?”

“ _All the games,_ ” she says darkly, then cheerfully announces, “See you Wednesday!” before hanging up.

And Dean’s glad Charlie drew the wrong conclusions, and he’s glad she’s not worried about it, because Dean’s not sure what bothers him more, pity or advice.

But a part of him still kind of wishes he could talk to her about it.

“Dean, how do I tell the difference between soft and stiff?”

Dean freezes as he enters the kitchen, trying to parse the question.

“Thought you, uh, figured that out our first year of college.”

Cas doesn’t turn around, but Dean’s pretty sure those are his rolling-my-eyes shoulders.

“I’m trying to make cream.”

“Well, then, my point sta—”

“Mint cream, for fruit biscuits, but noted.”

Dean smiles, although a week ago, he would have sidled up to Cas and offered an object demonstration.

He has no idea where they’re at right now.

“Fruit biscuits. Sounds good. What’s the occasion?”

“Game night. Charlie’s been wanting to try them.”

“Oh.” Dean hesitates, stepping forward to lean against the counter a few cupboards down from Cas. “You should have asked me to help.”

Cas doesn’t look up.

“It’s fine. You had a long day.”

Maybe it’s Dean’s imagination, but he thinks he hears an edge to the words, and it’s not lost on him that Dean got home nearly two hours late and this is the first time they’ve spoken all day.

But that’s not really Dean’s fault, is it? Cas is the one who _knows_ things aren’t kosher, and is refusing to talk about it, the one who came home and barely spoke to Dean, let alone tried to touch him, when a week ago, he would have — he would have . . .

Except, now that Dean thinks about it, watching Cas stare into the creamy white mixture, finger poised over the speed control — maybe Cas _wouldn’t_ have, because actually — Cas _didn’t,_ did he?

The soft lumps in the cream slowly draw themselves up into curling peaks as Dean scrambles to review the last month in his head.

There was sex, a lot of sex, during which Cas was _definitely_ an enthusiastic participant, enough that it would never have occurred to Dean to second-guess any of it. But now that he’s home, now that Dean knows several other someones spent a few days enjoying that same enthusiasm, he’s trying to envision a scenario where Cas came home after a perfectly wholesome work trip and jumped Dean before the door even shut behind him, and he — well, he _can’t._

Because actually, Dean can’t remember a time when Cas did anything like that, nor can he remember a time Cas was the one to inch closer on the sofa and slip an arm around Dean, or to roll over and pin him to the bed for tickles or snuggles and everything that inevitably followed. In fact, the only time Dean can remember Cas initiating shit, verbally or otherwise, was that filthy suggestion of his in the Roadhouse parking lot when they first got together (and his unconscious bodily wanderings in the dead of the night, which probably don’t count, given that they _are_ unconscious).

“Is everything alright?”

Dean looks up, startled, to find Cas has finally looked at him, albeit with a great deal of concern.

“Huh?” he manages.

“You look . . . sick,” Cas says slowly, scrunching his face as he studies him.

“Oh, yeah, I just — yeah, no, the mint leaves. Kinda overpowering,” Dean mumbles, because _how the fuck did he miss that_?

Like, Dean knew Cas was really not picky when it came to sex, but shit, if he’s been throwing down with Dean this whole time just because Dean is what’s _there,_ because Dean wants it and Cas is just like, ‘eh, why not,’ but he’d be just as into it if it happened to be somebody else who’s there, then — then—

“Good luck with the biscuits, man,” he calls weakly, and retreats.

The thing is, sleeping next to Cas is nothing new, for Dean. Sure, it’s not really something they’d done as adults, but when they were kids, they used to share a bed all the time — as often as Dean could get away with, which was whenever Cas’s Mom’s desire to rain on their parade was outweighed by her desire not to have to deal with him.

Which was pretty fucking often.

Anyway, Cas slept on the floor the first few times, and for whatever reason, it made Dean anxious as all get out. He’d adapted to Sammy being in a different bed, on the other side of the room, in no time at all, but something about trying to fall asleep and seeing Cas curled up on the floor, two feet down and several feet away, made the task just about impossible; even once he was asleep, he’d catch himself waking up, searching out the tiny pile in the darkness with bleary eyes.

So Dean thought about this very seriously in his eleven-year-old brain, and after a few weeks of intermittent pondering, he came to the first conclusion: it’d be better if Cas slept up in the bed with him.

Dad had always been after him to take care of Sammy, after all, and even when he didn’t exactly specify what that entailed, Dean could spot a problem and find a solution on his own with no trouble. And Cas sleeping on the floor? That was a _huge_ problem, and once he sat down and thought about it, Dean figured out why.

Dean had slept on a floor before, plenty of times; floors were hard and caught drafts, and kind of lonely, too, if that kind of thing bothered you, not that it did all that much. But there was no good way to turn on a floor to make it comfortable, even if you were really tired, and Dean was willing to bet Cas had spent his whole life sleeping in a bed, hadn’t ever had to make do with a floor or half a car bench or an ancient scuzzy bathtub, which meant that he was bound to get fed up with the situation.

Except unlike Dean, Cas _did_ have another option, could just stay home and sleep in his comfy bed, and that was precisely what Dean wanted to avoid.

But how to to talk him into sharing?

See, in Dean’s experience — and maybe he was letting his head get away with him, like he got in trouble for with his Dad sometimes — when you let it be known you wanted something, it just made you that much less likely to actually _get_ it. He wasn’t sure if it was people or the universe or both that tried to conspire against you, but the pattern held true, and at eleven he was wise enough to know that it was better to just keep it a secret, if you could.

And thus, he came to the second conclusion: if he wanted Cas up in the bed, where he’d be comfortable enough to keep agreeing to sleep over, then Dean was going to have to be clever about it — so clever nobody figured out that’s what he was really aiming for.

So he mulled over _this_ problem a little while longer, just as summer ended and the nights started getting colder, and finally, he arrived at a solution.

Dad was always telling stories about the guys he caught and brought back to the authorities, how you had to get pretty crafty sometimes to do it; it wasn’t all just research and tracking. At the end of it all, no matter how you did all the prep work, you still had to _catch_ the guy, and you never knew how it would go.

But you could try and plan, based on what you _did_ know, and one of the best ways to draw ‘em in, his Dad said, was to make them think you were after something else entirely.

Which is exactly what Dean did.

“Ugh,” he complained at breakfast one Saturday morning, after making a show of putting on a sweatshirt because he was just _so cold._ “I feel awful.”

“Yeah?” Ellen asked, eyeing him from the stove. “What’s wrong, hon?”

“I dunno. I just don’t feel good. It was too cold last night.” Ellen frowned, about to say something, but Dean wasn’t finished. “But Cas had my spare blanket.”

Next to him, Cas’s fork froze, and he looked up with wide eyes.

“Oh — I didn’t know — I’m sorry, Dean—”

Dean waved a hand.

“It’s fine. It’s just, it’s fall now, so it’s getting really cold at night. I don’t wanna keep doing this.”

There was some weird, blotchy thing happening to Cas’s face as Dean spoke, which was kind of worrying, but he couldn’t afford to get distracted.

“Well, if you’re gettin’ cold, Dean, we have—” Ellen started, just as Cas looked down, hands tightly clasped in his lap, and opened his own mouth to speak.

Dean barreled forward.

“Cas’ll just have to sleep in the bed,” he interrupted, and ate a huge spoonful of eggs, to make it clear he wasn’t too worried about the response.

There was a brief silence, and when Dean glanced up, they both looked startled.

“Is — is that okay?” Cas asked, voice small.

“Well, yeah, why not?” Dean shrugged. “Then we both get two blankets. Problem solved.”

Cas gave him one of those big, gummy grins, slow as it was to start, and Dean tried not to look too proud of himself when Ellen just hummed and went back to cooking.

So Cas started sleeping over, tucked up safe and sound between Dean and the wall, and all was right with the world, at least as far as sleepovers went.

Until one night, Bobby stopped in the room just as Dean was getting Cas set up in his spot by the wall.

Dean didn’t think too much about it, just made sure Cas’s pillow was fluffy and he had enough blanket and he didn’t need anything else, but the next morning, Bobby pulled him aside for a talk.

Bobby’s talks weren’t half as scary as his Dad’s, since Dean was rarely in trouble with Bobby, but it still made him nervous as all get out when Bobby sat him down on one of the wicker porch chairs, catching his eye as he took the other one.

“Don’t look like that. You're not in trouble.”

“Right,” Dean mumbled, antsy. Cas was waiting back inside with Sammy and Raiders on VHS, and Dean was seriously hoping that whatever this was wouldn’t interfere with those plans.

“Just wanted to talk to you ‘bout your friend in there.”

“Cas? What about him?”

Bobby hesitated.

“Well. Overheard y’all gettin’ ready for bed last night.” He cleared his throat. “Y’know it ain’t your job to protect him, right?”

Dean blinked, not trusting himself to speak. Of course it wasn’t Dean’s _job_ to protect Cas. Dean knew that.

And yet, his insides felt all cold and cavey, like they had when his Dad called and said there was a change of plans, and they’d be starting school at Bobby’s instead of him coming to get them, like he’d said.

Bobby sighed.

“Just — Cas is a smart boy, alright? Tougher than ya might think. It’s okay to just be his friend, just like it’s okay to just be Sam’s brother.”

And right then, Dean knew what this was. This was the same freaking talk Bobby’d given him when he had a meltdown the first time Sam went crying to Ellen instead of Dean.

No way was Dean going through this _again,_ especially when this time Bobby was _wrong._

“He _needs_ me,” Dean blurted out, not thinking, and Bobby looked dismayed.

“Dean—”

“He _does,_ okay? Yeah, he’s smart, and tough, and — and whatever, but there’s tons of stuff he doesn’t know, and he didn’t even have any friends before me, I’m the only one he’s got, and — and did you know he doesn’t always say, even if there’s a problem? So if I don’t look after him, something could happen, and I wouldn’t know about it, and he’d just—”

Bobby held up a hand, nodding hastily.

“Alright, alright — I get it.” He reached up to scratch his head while Dean took deep breaths across from him, clutching the edge of the weather-worn cushion he sat on. “That’s fine. Just — I just want you to understand, that even if he _didn’t_ need you — that don’t make you less good friends. It ain’t about what you can do for him, alright? And if there comes a day when he wants to sleep by himself, or walk home alone, ya gotta be okay with it. Understood?”

Dean pressed his lips together, cushion in a death grip.

“Understood,” he mumbled, although he thought Bobby was the one who didn’t get it here, who didn’t seem to realize just how mean Cas’s Mom was, how lonely he was before Dean moved in, how many things he needed explained to him, or how scared he got when he was left by himself. He was acting like this was the same as Dean forgetting that there were other people to help take care of Sam, now, forgetting that Dad wasn’t gonna come in and tear him a new one for messing it up, but it _wasn’t_ _;_ first of all, nobody ever told him he _had_ to take care of Cas (although Dean would take care of Sammy even if he wasn’t scared of Dad). Second, Sam had Bobby and Ellen now, and once Dean got used to it, it was kinda nice, sometimes, not having to be the only one worried about Sammy. But Cas didn’t _have_ a Bobby and Ellen. You know what he did have? _Dean._

So Cas _absolutely_ needed Dean, and even if Bobby was going along with it because he could tell Dean was upset, he clearly didn’t understand _at all._

Bobby sighed.

“Alright. I didn’t mean to upset you. Just — somethin’ to bear in mind. Why don’t you head back in and watch your movie, alright?”

Dean deflated a little, at that. He shouldn’t get mad at Bobby. Bobby worked really hard to help support them all, even Sam and Dean, who were freeloaders (although Bobby and Ellen got real upset when Dean used that word). He couldn’t possibly be expected to know Cas as well as Dean did, and Dean knew from the last time, with Sam, that Bobby just didn’t want him to feel pressured and get stressed out or whatever.

Dean just wished he understood that there was nobody he’d have to answer to if he let Cas down except himself, because taking care of Cas wasn’t a burden. He wasn’t really sure what he’d call it, but damn if anybody was gonna stop him from doing it.

Still, he nodded, and when Bobby shot him a wry smile as he passed, Dean returned it.

But even after they’d started the movie, Dean worried about it. He could barely make himself pay attention, even during his favorite parts. In fact, Sam started talking to Cas at some point, a big no-no during Dean’s favorites, and Dean didn’t even realize he couldn’t hear the dialogue.

The moment the movie was over, Dean headed for the treehouse, deeply unsettled, and Cas, as expected, followed.

“Is everything okay?” Cas asked him, once they were settled. And Dean meant to lie, to just make something up, because he was still really upset and the fact that it was about Cas in the first place made it kind of embarrassing to say — but this was _Cas_ , and instead Dean found himself blurting out:

“Do you need me?”

Cas blinked.

“For what?”

“No, I mean — like, in general? Do you — do you _need_ me?”

Cas hesitated, averting his eyes, and there was a long, vaguely guilty silence.

“No?” he said eventually, uncertain in a way that only made Dean feel worse, because Cas had his _are you going to get angry at me_ face on, and Dean’s stomach dropped like a thousand pound anvil.

“Oh,” he said dumbly.

“Um, Dean—” Cas started, but Dean’s eyes were doing that awful stinging thing that meant he was about to humiliate himself by crying like a freaking girl, and if Cas already didn’t think he needed Dean, the last thing he should see was Dean looking totally _weak._ Wouldn’t _that_ be a great way to inspire confidence?

“Can you leave me alone for now?” Dean interrupted, voice thick, and Cas’s face fell.

“Dean—”

Dean just shook his head. He’d be fine in the morning, ready to pretend it never happened and wasn’t a big deal in the first place, but for right now, he was hurting desperately, and having the source of his anguish staring right at him was the last thing he needed.

Defeated, Cas whispered, “Okay,” and slipped out of the treehouse, leaving Dean alone.

It felt pretty bad. Like, really bad. Enough that it was over an hour before he could compose himself enough to leave the treehouse, and even then, he felt exhausted and wrung-out as he trudged back inside.

He figured he’d go up and lie down in his bed, instead, or put on another movie, but Bobby was reading in the armchair when he went back in, and he caught Dean’s eye. Without a word, he jerked his head toward the front door, then went right back to his story.

Naturally, Dean went to check it out, curiously pulling open the door to find—

“Cas?”

Cas’s head whipped around, and he unfolded himself from where he’d been huddled up on the porch step.

Dean frowned.

“What are you still doing here?” he asked, and Cas stuck his hands in his pockets, eyes unsure as they flickered between Dean’s face and his shoes.

“I’m waiting for you.” He paused, and added, a little quieter, “You’re supposed to walk me home.”

It took Dean a moment to respond, and in the end, he mostly didn’t; he just nodded, shuffling forward, and didn’t miss Cas’s clear relief when he started to descend the steps.

They were quiet on the way to Cas’s house, but it wasn’t a bad silence, and they spoke their goodbyes with warmth, just like always.

Because maybe Bobby was right, and there would come a day that Cas decided he didn’t want to sleep next to Dean or be walked home, and when it did, Cas would say so — though Dean hoped that wouldn’t happen.

But right then, even though Cas didn’t _need_ him, he _wanted_ him.

And that, Dean thought, watching Cas disappear inside, might just be better.

Cas never asked Dean to stop, not with words, and not for years, and after a while, Dean got cocky.

On a bitter autumn night two years later, Dean made a promise to always take care of Cas, and naively assumed he’d get the chance to follow through on it.

In the end, though, eleven-year-old Dean understood things pretty damn well, and sometime around the end of high school, Cas did stop wanting him, stopped wanting any of the few things Dean had to offer.

And right now?

Dean kinda feels like it’s happening all over again.

He has a therapy appointment Wednesday night, after which he has to head back to pick up Cas and go to Charlie’s, and by the time he leaves work, he’s dreading it.

Still, he mans up and goes in, and cleverly (in his opinion) spends the first five minutes venting about random garage drama, hoping Pamela will extrapolate from that to explain anything she thinks is amiss.

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been that much drama, even if there’s been a sizable increase in business, and he’s too worn-out to outright invent anything, at least not anything she’ll believe.

“So,” she says, once there’s a pause. “Cas is back. How was the trip? I assume he survived the flight.”

Dean’s pretty sure therapists aren't supposed to tease you about your legitimate phobias, but he’d rather deal with that little gleam in her eye than talk about anything to do with Cas’s fucking trip.

“Sure did,” he says smoothly, throwing her a mock-warning look. “But that doesn’t make planes not dangerous.”

She nods, serious.

“Your fears are very understandable, Dean. Statistics can say a plane is safer than a car, but at the end of the day, being behind the wheel means you feel more in control of that safety factor. I think it’s natural for you to feel more comfortable with that.”

Dean’s kind of dumb, but he’s pretty sure Pamela just said something about his insecurity and control issues.

He doesn’t get a chance to protest.

“Anyway,” she continues cheerfully, winking. “Did Cas have a good time?”

 _That’s_ a fucking understatement.

“Uh, sure, I think.”

Pamela pauses.

“You think?”

He hunches forward a little.

“I mean, yeah. It sounded like. You’ll get to ask him, when he comes in.”

She slowly sets her pen down.

“Okay, then. I’ll do that. And what about you? As we discussed last week, this was your first time apart since you began dating.”

Oh, for God’s sake — Pam’s gonna make him _talk_ about this, isn’t she?

“Not — not really,” he hedges. “I mean, I go to work.”

She just raises her brows at him, and you know what? Fuck therapists. They’re basically just super specialized sadistic priests, and they’re not happy till they’ve wrung some sordid confession out of whatever unlucky bastard’s paying to see them.

“Fine,” he mutters. “I wasn’t awesome. I wish he hadn’t gone.” God, does he wish Cas hadn’t gone to New York. “Happy?”

Pamela tilts her head, unimpressed.

“Are _you_?” she counters calmly.

“Yes.”

“Really,” she says, eyes boring into him, and yeah, this is probably how she gets all those confessions out of people.

“Yep.”

“Mhm. That would make sense. If it was hard having him gone, it’s only natural you’d be happy he’s back.”

Dean’s sensing a ‘but.’

“But,” she continues, and there it is, “You don’t _seem_ happy, Dean. You seem distressed, and maybe a little angry.” She pauses. “And that’s okay. But if you’re feeling that, and you want to do something about it, it would help if you could tell me what happened to make you feel that way.”

Jesus, he thinks tiredly. Maybe he should have just canceled.

“I just — it was rough, him being away. Felt like forever. But there’s all this work at the garage, so I feel like I barely see him, and when I do, I’m just _tired_ all the time.”

He doesn’t even have to fake the frustration, at least, because he’s genuinely frustrated as hell.

It pays off; Pamela softens right up.

“Well, it’s only been a few days. Maybe you could schedule some one-on-one time, to make sure you get to catch up with each other?”

And she sounds so earnest, so sympathetic, that Dean feels like a total heel, because Pamela is genuinely trying to help his sorry ass, is giving him a pretty nice discount and everything just so he can see her each week and she can try and fix him, and maybe if he just fucking told her what was going on, she could actually help him figure it out.

But Dean is shit at talking about his problems, especially when it comes to the things that matter most; and Cas matters on a whole other level than pretty much anything else besides Sam.

And yeah, okay, that’s what he’s here for — but he’s not far enough yet to be able to _do_ it.

“Uh, well. Game night’s tonight,” he offers, and she nods.

“That’ll be good. It’s not one-on-one, but I also think it’ll be really good for both of you, to see your other friends — relax and have fun.” She considers him for a moment. “What did you do while Cas was away, if you don’t mind me asking? Was it just work, or . . .?”

Dean hesitates. The problem with seeing the same therapist your partner does is that if your stories don’t match up, she’ll probably be able to figure out who’s lying.

“Charlie came over and we had a Star Trek marathon.” _Consistency is almost as good as truth, son._

“Oh, that’s great. I’m a little jealous,” she adds, smiling. “But in all seriousness, I’m proud of you, Dean. I know it can be tempting to hide away or wallow, when things have you down, but reaching out to a friend, doing something positive you enjoy — those are really good things.”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, uncomfortable. Normally, he’d be feeling kinda patronized, even if he knows this is just how things go in therapy, but right now he just feels guilty as fuck.

“On that note — I think it’s worth asking why you had so much trouble with Cas being gone. We can joke about interrupted honeymoons, but you seemed especially anxious over his absence — enough that you just told me you wished he hadn’t gone, at all.”

Ohh, son of a _bitch._ He should have thought this through better.

“Uh,” he manages, palms sweating, but nothing follows. The hell is he supposed to _say_?

“That’s not criticism, Dean. As a general rule, whatever you’re feeling? It’s probably normal. The only reason we talk about it is because it may be having a negative impact on you, and suffering doesn’t do anyone any good. That’s all.”

“Right.” She’s told him this before, and while some days it makes sense, most days he thinks she’s full of it, because he knows a lot of his feelings are bullshit and he has no business feeling them.

“Now, last week we talked about sub-conscious worries. I know you couldn’t think of anything then, but you seemed to be anxious about more than just Cas’s safety. Is there anything that came up while he was gone, that you might want to just talk through with me?”

It’s all he can do not to laugh. Something came up, alright.

“Uh.” He pretends to think, trying to affect a sort of bemused nonchalance. “Not really?”

She smiles, tilting her head.

“You don’t have to answer right away. Take as long as you want to think.”

So Dean’s stuck sitting there, continuing to pretend to think so she doesn’t call him on his clear eagerness to not have this conversation, and somewhere along the way he _actually_ starts thinking, and all the anguished back and forth that’s been happening inside his head over the last few days resolves into one burning question, and holy _shit_ , maybe Pam’s on to something, after all.

“Pam,” he starts, carefully neutral. “Actually, there’s — I did wanna ask about something.”

“Of course.”

It takes Dean a second to figure out how to ask, and in the end, he decides to just — go for it.

“What, uh, what do you make of it? Cas’s, um, his sexuality?”

Pamela lifts her brows, clearly not expecting that.

“Well, he’s self-described as pansexual, isn’t he?”

“Right, right, yeah — but I don’t — I don’t necessarily mean — like, not just in the — in the _who_ sense, but you know — like, there’s a lot more to an individual’s total sexuality than just preference, right?”

She nods.

“Absolutely. Sexuality encompasses a lot of things.”

Dean sits back, relieved.

“Yeah. Like, for instance, you can have a preference, but you can also be, uh, demisexual, or whatever?”

She nods slowly.

“Yes.”

“And then there’s, y’know, sex drive, and stuff.”

“Right.”

“And I was just wondering about — about Cas’s. About what you made of it.”

Her mouth tugs down at the corners a little, perplexed.

“Well. I understand what you’re talking about, but I’m actually not totally clear on what you’re asking, Dean.”

God _damn_ it.

“Right, yeah, sorry, just — shit, I don't know how to explain it. Um — like, Cas has always — I mean, once he started, y’know—” Dean waves a hand. “He was pretty open, right? Like, he wasn’t real picky about partners, and he had — I mean, there’s nothin’ wrong with it, but he had a _lot_ of sex. Like, all the time.”

Her lips twitch, although she still looks vaguely concerned.

“Sure. So — are you worried about his sex drive?”

Dean hesitates, then shrugs.

“Kind of? I mean, depending on what that, uh, entails. I guess — what I’m really wondering, is — do you think that kind of thing can really _change_?”

Pamela blinks, then sits back in her chair.

“That depends. Studies show that humans do go through cycles, during their lifetime, where things like sex drive fluctuate.” She pauses. “But no, I don’t think that a person can consciously influence that, for the most part.”

Dean’s heart sinks, although he pretty much expected that.

“However," she continues. "Just because you can’t consciously control something like your sex drive, doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of other factors at play that affect what you decide to _do_ about it.”

“Okay,” Dean says, at a loss. She studies him.

“You seem troubled,” she says frankly. “Are you afraid you won’t be able to keep up?”

Dean gapes.

“What? No! I can — believe me, I can _keep up._ ”

Something about that makes her bite her lip, before nodding sagely.

“Alright. Then — why the question?”

He swallows, the need to defend his virility or what-the-fuck-ever settling down beside his worry.

“Uh. Well. I mean, I can keep up, if we’re talking about, you know, a drive that just goes, like — up and down, right?”

She squints, but nods.

“But what about — I don't know, what if it goes — _other_ directions, too?”

“Other directions,” she repeats, and he nods, frustrated.

“Yeah. Like, if it’s driving him to have a lot of sex, then awesome, we’re probably on the same page, but — shit, Cas has always liked to have a lot of different partners, you know? So — what if it’s driving him toward variety?”

Her brows shoot up.

“Do you mean—”

“I mean I’m just one person, okay?!” he snaps, shoving a hand through his hair and sagging into the sofa back. “And I’m asking you, if Cas always wanted more than one person in the past, then — do you really think that can change?”

Dean can’t even begin to read Pam’s expression, utterly blank as it is, and he’s seriously on the verge of walking out when she finally takes a breath, lips folded inward before she blows it out.

“I see. Well. As I said, _many_ things determine how a person behaves — and which decisions are going to make them happiest, regardless of their instincts.”

Dean shuts his eyes. What the hell does that even _mean_?

“But if Cas has needs, he has needs.”

“You’re right,” Pamela says, and he looks back at her, dismayed. She holds his gaze. “He does have needs. We _all_ have needs. And the bulk of those needs, in a relationship? They’re usually not sexual.”

Dean lifts his shoulders, tired.

“Okay? What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you both know as well as anyone that you can get sex from a lot of places. And yet, many people still choose to enter relationships.”

“Yeah,” he mutters. “’Cause they get brainwashed by stupid feelings.”

She gives him a sharp look.

“No. Because human beings are complicated, and they need a lot of different things, especially emotionally. And I think, instead of focusing on Cas’s sex life over the years before you two started dating, you should think about _why,_ after not dating anyone else, he still wanted a relationship with you.”

Dean looks down.

“That’s — probably complicated.” That’s what he and Cas _are,_ really, even now, even though he’d briefly thought they were past that; _complicated._

“Maybe. Maybe not. The point is, Cas must have believed you could give him what he needed. You should consider having a little faith, too; if not in yourself, then in him.”

Dean stays silent, although he’s thinking about it. Of _course_ he’s thinking about it. This is Cas, and he can’t afford to fuck it up.

“And Dean?” she adds, serious.

“Yeah?”

“Either way — neither you or I can know how Cas feels, ultimately, and the same is true for him when it comes to you. If something’s bothering you, the _best_ thing you can do is talk to Cas about it.”

“Right,” he agrees, and he’s not even surprised she told him that, because she’s a _therapist,_ for chrissakes, and feelings-talk is what they do.

It’s not what Dean does, though, and even though he thanks her for the advice, when he leaves, he knows he’s not going to follow it.

Still, he thinks about it. He thinks about what she said about need, about how bad it hurt, in college, when Cas made it clear that he’d either forgotten or simply rejected Dean’s promise to take care of him, so bad Dean decided to try and forget it, too, not that he ever quite did.

And he thinks about how he’s spent a week wallowing, alternating between an aching misery and quiet, bitter anger, completely caught up in how what Cas did is making him feel; in how he’s _right_ to feel this way, because Cas knew enough to know he should lie about it, clearly knows something’s up with Dean, and still won’t say a word.

And then he thinks about how sad and confused Cas looked, when Dean left him this morning, and he wonders if he’s been thinking about it all wrong.

Because Dean _knows_ Cas, better than anybody else does — just like Cas said when they first started this thing. Dean knows, has been with him almost every step of the way, and yet as soon as they started dating, Dean pretty much turned around and tried to stick Cas in a Traditional-Partner-shaped box like an insensitive jackass, assuming all kinds of shit based on all the relationships he’d had with people who _weren’t_ Cas and leaving Cas to founder on his own.

Like just because Dean was dating him, that made Cas any different.

But it didn’t, and Dean didn’t even want it to, would never want to change Cas. And if he hadn’t got so caught up in his own lovesick bullshit, _none_ of this would be a revelation.

Regardless of what Cas _wanted_ — maybe he _did_ need Dean to take care of him. Maybe he still does, because Cas is smart and tough, just like Bobby once said, but Dean wasn’t wrong either. There’s a lot Cas didn’t know, about a lot of things, including himself, and he’s still figuring it all out. And he deserves to be able to depend on Dean to keep looking out for him while he does it, without having to find the words to ask for that, because even almost twenty years later, Cas isn’t so good at that.

At the end of the day, Dean _promised,_ and for a long time, he’s been remiss; but now — now he’s pretty sure he knows what Cas needs, even if it’s the last thing _Dean_ wants.

And Dean is going to make sure he gets it.

The biscuits and cream are a huge hit, one which Charlie jokingly takes complete credit for, and a night with friends feels like just what Cas needs.

Especially since his and Dean’s silent argument is continuing, meaning home is stifling and lonely and Cas is increasingly convinced he should just suck it up and admit fault, because he’s not sure how much more of this he can take and he’s starting to wonder if this is a bigger deal, even, than he thought.

And if it is — is it really worth it, standing his ground? Perhaps Dean is being unreasonable, but it’s not like he makes a habit of it. Maybe this is one of those times, in a relationship, where Cas is supposed to _compromise._

Maybe if he doesn’t, he could end up losing everything.

They’re heavy thoughts, ones he cannot seem to escape, and tonight is a welcome distraction from those worries.

Except perhaps he allows himself to be _too_ distracted, works for that, even, forgetting to carefully keep track of Dean and whatever his expression happens to be doing for the first time in days. He would have said Dean was having fun, too, laughing along with the rest of them, refreshing Cas’s beers even when he wasn’t already getting up, and generally being pretty good company.

Which is why it comes as a complete surprise when afterward, halfway home and Cas still a little bit tipsy, Dean says:

“So, uh. I was thinkin’ we should talk.”

Cas sobers a little, startled. Dean seemed even more determined than _he_ did not to talk about this.

“Alright,” he says slowly, and for some reason, _Dean_ looks surprised.

“Oh — uh — now?”

Honestly, as much as Cas has been waiting for this, as much as he wants some kind of resolution to what shouldn’t even be a problem in the first place, he doesn’t trust that Dean will be reasonable. Which means he doesn’t trust that this won’t just end with him getting yelled at.

“Sure. Why not?”

It’s still better to just get it out of the way, he decides. Dean can yell, if he needs to, and even though it might take Cas a little while to get over the sting of injustice, he’s still willing to say ‘sorry,’ if it means Dean will cool off and things can go back to normal.

“Alright.” Dean clears his throat, opening and closing his mouth for a few agonizing moments while he apparently searches for his words. “Uh. So. I — I’ve been thinking. About everything, and stuff, and I — I thought . . .”

Cas waits for him to finish, although it’s not easy, because Dean sounds strange somehow, and he’s clutching the wheel and staring at the road more like he’s _nervous_ than angry, and it’s making Cas antsy, too.

“About?” he finally prompts, and Dean — Dean actually _flinches._

“Right, sorry. Uh, I guess — well.”

He falls silent again, and it’s all so bizarre that Cas is genuinely starting to panic, is ready to demand Dean just _spit it out,_ when finally, he does.

“I think — maybe we should try an open relationship.”

Cas thinks he might stop breathing, certain he must have heard wrong, and perhaps hoping that if he’s quiet enough, an echo will come back clearer.

It doesn’t.

It’s funny, in some ways, because once upon a time, Cas, frustrated and insulted and angry, had accused Dean of acting like he’d never heard of an open relationship before, righteous in his effort to defend the non-monogamous.

Right about now, he wishes Dean really hadn’t.

“An open relationship,” he repeats dully, just in case, and Dean takes a deep breath beside him, eyes still on the road.

“Yeah.”

So he did hear correctly — so, this is really happening. Dean Winchester, consummate ladies’ man and dabbler in dudes and peculiarly steadfast in his commitments nonetheless, is asking Cas for an open relationship.

Presumably because he doesn’t want Cas, anymore, or at the very least, wants other people, as well.

Presumably because, unlike all his past partners, Cas is not enough.

In light of that — Cas takes a deep breath, staring hard at the glovebox — _in light of that,_ Cas has probably been misinterpreting some things over the past few days, should probably take some time to reevaluate, though it would seem it’s too late to do anything about it.

That’s for another time, however. Right now, Dean is waiting for an answer.

And Cas knows how he wants to answer, knows that his first, kneejerk response was the right one, that there is no amount of time he could spend thinking it over to come to a different conclusion — but he also knows that he doesn’t have a choice.

And a part of him thinks Dean knows, too, thinks it’s fucking cruel of his _best friend_ to do this to him when he _must_ know that, and Cas kind of hates him for that — but more than anything, he loves Dean.

So, _so_ very much.

And if the alternative is not having him at all (because he doesn’t deceive himself that he can say no, not without Dean breaking up with him, something Cas is not sure he, let alone their friendship, will survive with much success) . . .

Then what else can he do?

“Alright, then,” he says quietly, and everything feels disconcertingly cold and blank, inside and out. “Let’s try that.”

Dean doesn’t look at him, is silent for so long Cas thinks he might not say anything at all.

“Okay,” he answers eventually, and not long after, they’re home.

Neither one of them speak for the rest of the night.

In their Sophomore year of college, Dean’s girlfriend cheated on him.

To be honest, Cas could never remember her name, was never particularly concerned it would turn into anything serious, and considered her one of many in a string of just-barely-qualifying-as-girlfriends Dean had throughout college.

Still, despite her altogether bland and unexceptional qualities, not to mention the fact that the relationship lasted a mere two months, she did ultimately leave a mark.

Dean had never been cheated on before, that he knew of, and like most people, he didn’t care for the experience _at all._

“Just — just — what the _fuck?_ ” Cas heard some variation of this several times a day for at least two weeks after Dean showed up to a party he hadn’t thought he’d have time to attend and found her leaving an upstairs bedroom with one of the frat brothers.

Apparently, it was not the first time.

“Like, fucking fine, break up with a guy, but don’t fucking _cheat_ on him! Who the hell _does_ that?”

“A person of very questionable morals,” Cas typically answered, at a loss as to how to cheer him. It was not long after Cas’s midnight knock on November 2nd had gone unanswered, and consolatory touches of any kind were out of the question. He was sensitive to Dean’s pain, of course, but he had no idea what he could say to ease it. They established, fairly quickly, that she was entirely in the wrong and cheating is, in general, a very shitty thing to do to someone, but beyond that . . .

It ate away at Dean, those two weeks, until finally, he drank.

He’d been drinking before that — it was college and this was Dean — but that was the first time he got completely, utterly wasted, enough to reveal the truth of his ire, which was ultimately less _ire_ and more _hurt._

“Like, what’d I do?” he asked, slumped next to Cas and leaned against him, contact which was disturbingly comforting to Cas in a way that whatever warm body he’d found for the night (or morning or afternoon) never was.

“What do you mean? You didn’t.” He frowned, thinking back, and no, Dean hadn’t done anything except be charming and handsome and reasonably attentive — i.e. everything a college girl seemed to be looking for.

(Cas was, perhaps, a little drunk, as well, not to mention a very tiny bit high.)

“Well, I must have,” Dean protested. “Or else why would she do that?”

Cas squinted, sure he must be misunderstanding.

“Because she wanted to sleep around?” he offered bluntly, no judgment in it. Cas quite happily did the same.

“But _why?_ ”

Incredulous, Cas leaned away.

“The same reason _you_ sleep around when you’re not dating, obviously.”

Dean huffed.

“Except I only wanna do that when I’m _not dating._ If she wanted to do that, why would she date me, huh?”

Free of his romantic feelings or not, Cas wasn’t blind to his friend’s attractive qualities. They were one of those things you couldn’t _unsee._

Dean didn’t give him a chance to respond.

“Because she thought I was worth it, right? ‘Cause she thought she wanted that with me. But then — but then I guess I musta let her down. Must be somethin’ wrong with me. Made her decide she wanted to try out somebody else, instead.”

Cas frowned.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. You just . . . didn’t work out. Which she should have told you sooner.”

Dean shook his head.

“No, no, Cas, don’t you get it? I’m like—” he flailed his arm a little. “I’m good in theory, right? Lotsa girls think so, y’know? S’why she was keepin’ me around. I — I look good. I make her look good. But then she musta figured out I wasn’t so good, after all. She still wanted me, she just — she wanted _more._ An’ I couldn’t give it to her.”

“Dean,” Cas said seriously, dismayed. “You’re reading too much into things. We’re young. You were ill-suited. She was either too much of a coward to admit that, or she enjoys hurting people. But there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Yeah, right,” Dean sighed, then shook his head. “I don’t get it. I just — if I date somebody, it’s ‘cause I wanna date them. Not anybody else. And if I thought I did, I’d tell ‘em before I did anything, and I’d break up with ‘em, because I get that — that other people are different, but for me — for me, if I like somebody, if I really, really like somebody, ’m not lookin’ anywhere else.” He shook his head again. “I don’t think I could.”

“You see?” Cas said quietly. “You just said it. You and her — you’re different, except she’s dishonest. But who she is has no reflection on you.”

“It _does,_ though. She’s not _like_ you, Cas, she _dates_ people. I’m not her first boyfriend, and she didn’t start out wanting to be open. She was real clear on that, that she didn’t want me flirting with other girls an’ stuff.” He lets out a bitter laugh. “So what changed her mind? Me. Just — wasn’t enough. Only reason I can think of.”

Cas straightened, irritated.

“No. No, you’re — you’re being stupid.”

“Like always.”

“Fuck, Dean, _shut up._ You know that’s not what I meant. You aren’t stupid, but what you just said was. I don’t care how great or how shitty you are, Dean, you don’t have the power to _change_ somebody’s preferences. They are what they are.”

Dean turned slightly, frowning at him.

“You think?”

“Yeah. I think she enjoys fucking with people, personally, but even if you’re right and she wanted to do a poly thing, then she’s always been that way and she’s just still figuring herself out and _you_ happened to get caught in the crossfire. That’s all,” Cas declared, extremely annoyed at this point and, not for the first time, deeply resentful of Dean’s recent need to try and have relationships with all these random girls instead of just sleeping with them. It was always _so much drama._

“Oh.” Dean blinked, still frowning, and Cas resigned himself to a long night of circuitous arguments with his drunk, morose friend, struggling to convince him of his worth — but then Dean sighed.

And then, very gently, he let his head rest against Cas’s shoulder.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. You’re smart, Cas. You probably know what you’re talking about.” He licked dry lips. “Thanks, buddy. You’re a good friend.”

And Cas felt pretty good about it, about the night in general, glad he’d been there to talk Dean out of his nonsense, to have a reminder that however much trouble they were having, settling on a new normal, Dean still thought he was a good friend.

Trying to fall asleep now, though, Dean’s devastating proposal ricocheting wildly around his brain — Cas wonders if maybe he wasn’t so smart, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John Winchester's A+ parenting subtext: Some light references to how hard it was on Dean, that John decided to leave him with Bobby and Ellen; additionally, references to the pressure John put on him to look after Sam, and to things John taught him about lying.
> 
> Discussions of sexuality in therapy: Dean, thinking Cas cheated, is now stuck wondering if it's just not in Cas's nature to be monogamous. Talking it over with Pamela, they discuss how much a person controls that, and Pamela tells him that while a person mostly can't, they do control their actions, and there always other factors at play in the decisions people make.


	3. just so i can be alone with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: suspected cheating (no actual cheating occurred), references to past child abuse, explicit sexual content (additional tags/details in the notes, scene marked with *** at the beginning and end if you want to skip it! Please remember I have no idea what I’m doing!), let me know if I misssed anything.
> 
> Chapter title from _Adore_ , by Amy Shark.
> 
> A note: Cas reflects on the open relationship agreement, and Dean’s motives for offering it. Please know that his thoughts are specific to his and Dean’s situation and his own insecurities; they’re not a commentary on open relationships in general, nor are they meant to portray them (or Cas’s feelings about them, objectively) in a negative light.

Dean leaves his phone at home the next day.

There’s a paranoid part of Cas that wonders if it was on purpose, wonders if Dean, well-aware of what this is probably doing to Cas, wants to make sure he’s not subjected to any hysterics or upset while Cas tries to come to terms with it, not when he’s so busy at work.

But if that’s the case, Dean is being stupid. Cas may be a lot of things, but prone to dramatics is not one of them. Dean’s delivered his terms, Cas had no choice but to agree, and now — he will move forward like an adult.

Still, when Sam’s ringtone draws him out of the bedroom sometime in the early evening, he glares at it suspiciously.

“Hello, Sam,” he greets him. “Dean left his phone at home.”

“Oh. He’s not there?”

“No, he’s still at work.”

“This late? Wow. He and Benny should consider hiring someone new.’

Cas frowns, something about that niggling at his brain—

“I think they did. Dean said he was training someone, last week.”

“Huh. I didn’t hear about that. Well, I guess it takes time.” Sam hums. “How are you doing, Cas? It’s been a while.”

Cas hesitates.

“Good. I’m — I’m good.”

There’s a pause.

“Um. Okay. That’s . . . good to hear.”

Cas bites back a sigh. He needs to work on his acting skills.

“And you, Sam? Still busy, I assume,” he adds, fighting to keep his tone light. Sam huffs.

“Yeah. Yeah, still busy. Man, I can’t wait until we can move back there, you know?”

“My sister does expect Valencia to be returned safely, at some point.”

He can hear the smile in Sam’s voice.

“Yeah? Well, you better let her know, then.”

Cas smiles in return, but maybe he _is_ feeling oversensitive today, because for the first time in a while, he’s hit with a wave of longing to have this part of his family close by once again.

 _Dean_ would certainly do much better, having Sam close, and Cas misses him immensely, as well; he isn’t sure what he’d say to Valencia, even if he had her here — he’s not sure what he can say to _anyone_ — but it would be a comfort nonetheless.

He just wishes _he_ understood, because he doesn’t, still isn’t sure how they got to this point, when a little over a week ago, he would have described everything as _perfect._

And even if it hadn’t been, Cas still would have said Dean was the last person who would ever be interested in an open relationship.

“Cas?”

“Sorry, what did you say?”

Sam is silent for a long moment.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, concern evident, and Cas falters.

Sam is Dean’s brother, the person in the world who’s closest to him, who understands him best; but he is also one of Cas’s best friends, and a very good man besides, and if Cas asks for his help, he will probably do his best to give it.

“Sam. If — if I ask you something. Will you, uh, avoid mentioning it to Dean?”

“Um.” Cas can practically _see_ that pinched, uncertain expression on his face. “Well, I mean — yeah, I guess, unless I feel like he deserves to know.”

“I don’t think you will.” Although, Dean may prefer that _Sam_ not know.

Well, tough. Sam _is_ Cas’s friend, and it’s not fair to expect Cas to keep secrets just so Dean can save face over a decision _he_ made.

“Um, okay. Then . . . shoot, I guess?”

Cas considers his words carefully.

“You may not know the answer.”

“Oh. So — this is a question about Dean?”

“Yes. I thought, if anyone knew, it would be you. He tells you everything.”

“As much as he tells anyone anything, maybe.”

Cas sighs.

“Right.”

“What is it?”

“Do you know — has Dean ever tried an open relationship, with anyone? Or — or expressed an interest, in such a thing?”

The silence is deafening.

“ _Excuse me?_ ” Sam finally chokes out, and he sounds _offended_. “Cas, you — I thought — look, you can’t ask him for that.”

“I—"

“I mean it. I get that it’s not necessarily my business, but the answer to your question is _no,_ and I’m not kidding, man. Don’t ask him for that. _Please_.”

“Sam,” Cas says quietly, shoulders slumped, because it’s exactly as he suspected. “I’m not. Dean, uh. He asked me.”

“ _Dean_?” Sam exclaims, incredulous. “Like, _my brother,_ Dean, asked _you,_ for — _seriously_?”

“Yes.”

“If this is a joke, it’s not funny, Cas.”

“It’s not a joke,” he mumbles. “Last night. He, uh, he’s been behaving differently for several days, now, and . . . I suppose that was why.”

Sam is, apparently, speechless.

Eventually, though, he speaks.

“Are you, um, are you sure you got that right? Because you two don’t always . . . _communicate,_ exactly, so maybe—"

“His _exact words,_ ” Cas interrupts, tired, “Were ‘I think we should try an open relationship.’ Please, Sam, if you can come up with some other interpretation of that, I’m all ears.”

Sam is quiet another moment, and then:

“Shit.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “Shit, I’m so sorry, Cas.”

“It’s fine.”

It’s really not.

“Right. Look, why don’t I — I’ll talk to him, okay? I’ll figure out what—"

“ _No,_ ” Cas snaps, straightening. “Please don’t. You said you wouldn’t tell him, unless you felt like he needed to know, and as you can see, he’s already aware. He might not, however, want _you_ to know, so I ask that you do as you promised and keep it to yourself.”

“But I really think—"

“ _Sam._ ” Cas knows he means well, he does, but he probably shouldn’t have asked a question he already knew the answer to in the first place, and he doubts anything can be achieved through Sam’s well-intentioned meddling.

Dean’s already made his decision, and now — now Cas will just have to live with it, with knowing it’s his own fucking fault Dean did.

“I — okay. Okay, Cas,” he relents, and Cas would bet real money Sam is pacing, now. “God. Are you — are you going to be — okay?”

“I will be,” Cas tells him, and mostly believes it; this is as unexpected as it is upsetting, but Cas is nothing if not adaptable, especially where Dean is concerned. He’ll learn to deal.

After all, what else can he _do_?

“Oh, hey, Dean.”

Dean immediately tenses, because Sam sounds _way_ too nonchalant and for someone as low-key high-strung as his little brother is, that’s a huge fucking red flag.

“What’s up, Sammy?” he asks, cautious, and Sam clears his throat.

“Oh, not a lot. Just checking in.”

“Cool.”

“How are you?”

“Good.”

“Yeah? And — how are things? Over there?”

For the record, Dean is a _way_ better liar than Sam.

“Peachy,” he says shortly. “How ‘bout you?”

“Great,” Sam enthuses stiffly. “Same old, for the most part.”

Normally, Dean would press him for more info, wanting to know _exactly_ what he’d been up to lately, if his stupid boss is still being a raging dick and if he’s eating something besides boiled eggs and raw vegetables, because while part of him trusts that Valencia will intervene if Sam’s headed for some accidental eating disorder, another part of him knows that she believes in personal autonomy or some bullshit like that — but he’s not dumb. Sam’s definitely up to something.

So he waits him out.

“What about you?” Sam finally asks. “Anything . . . new? Happening?”

Jesus Christ. Dad taught Dean way better than this, and Dean _thought_ he’d passed on the lessons, but apparently not.

“Nope. Same old,” he parrots, and he can pretty much hear the frown in the ensuing silence.

“Right. Okay.”

They make stilted conversation for a little while longer, during which it becomes more and more apparent that Sam is _dying_ to ask him something, and as annoying as that is, Dean is more disturbed by the fact that he doesn’t know _what._

Like, sure, Sam knows him better than pretty much anybody else, a fact which annoys Dean to no end, sometimes — but Dean hasn’t even _talked_ to him since this whole drama started, and even Sam can’t come up with something out of nothing.

Of course, he _did_ call during Dean’s drinking binge last week, and even though both times, Dean didn’t answer, maybe Sam’s instincts are just that good.

Anyway, Dean holds his ground, and eventually, Sam gives up, excusing himself to go read up on some lawyer bullshit so he’s ready for tomorrow. Despite the fact that they talked about nothing — that Dean spent most of the time making _sure_ they talked about nothing, because no way in hell is he telling his little brother what a fuckup he is — he does feel a little better afterward.

He feels less good when he heads off for bed, only to find Cas already curled up and slumbering away, though it’s not even ten yet.

Dean’s not sure what he expected, exactly, but a part of him _did_ kind of expect Cas to be . . . _relieved._ This way, he doesn’t have to stress about what happened in New York, and he doesn’t have to feel shitty when it inevitably happens again — not to mention there won’t be anything holding him back.

Hell, if anything, he should be _happy,_ right?

But then, Dean barely saw him today. Dean didn’t get home until eight o’ clock, feeling mysteriously queasy every time he thought about clocking out and heading home to face Cas after their talk last night, and once he did, Cas had already eaten and seemed immersed in work. Then Sam called and, well . . .

So maybe it’s got nothing to do with _happiness._ Maybe Dean’s the only one still hung up on his dumbass feelings, and Cas just has a headcold or something like that.

Maybe things’ll be better in the morning.

On that note, Dean carefully lies down on the other side of the bed, facing out, and struggles to fall asleep.

Two days later, it’s pretty apparent that _no,_ Cas is not happy, and Dean can’t fix what he doesn’t understand, no matter how willing he is.

He’s got a fleeting thought that _maybe_ Cas wasn’t looking for an open relationship, was just looking for a way _out_ of a relationship altogether, but he dismisses it. He’ll think about it later, if it comes to that, if he can’t figure another way out of this mess, but for now, that’s a last resort.

It has to be.

In the meantime, though, Cas is barely talking to him, which is a problem, because every time Dean sees him, his throat goes dry and he pretty much freezes up, which means _he_ isn’t doing much talking, either. Even more worrying is the fact that Dean hasn’t woken up _once_ to Octo-Cas trying to make a home in Dean’s personal space bubble, which had still been a thing even after his trip, which _means_ — there’s definitely a problem. Or an existing problem is getting worse. Dean has no idea.

But Dean’s weak-ass need to adjust is no excuse not to step up and do this thing right, so he wracks his brain for all the things he _does_ know make Cas happy, and once he’s got a decent list going, he gets to work.

The next day, he ducks out early, mustering a weak laugh when Benny teases him about racing home to the missus, and heads to the grocery store; Cas’s favorite savory dish that Dean makes, hands-down, is the white mushroom lasagna that takes about nine million years to assemble, bakes for over an hour, and then requires carefully attended broiling to give it that nice, crisp cheesy top.

Needless to say, Dean doesn’t make it very often.

But he’s home by five, Cas nodding silently at him from the sofa, laptop open, and while Dean’s still a little shell-shocked and not quite brave enough to try and greet him properly, he takes his shit to the kitchen and gets to work.

Two hours later, he’s got a _perfectly_ toasted lasagna, layers lush and even and just the way Cas likes, and then comes the moment of truth.

“Cas?” he calls tentatively, and when no response comes, he takes a deep breath and peers around the archway. “Hey, Cas? Uh. Dinner’s ready.”

Cas continues typing for a few seconds, and then pauses.

“Oh. I’ll be in soon. Start without me.”

Dean bites back the cowardly, “Okay,” he wants to give so he can call it a wash and retreat back into the kitchen, but he makes himself linger.

“Nah, it’s okay. I’ll wait for you.” He clears his throat. “Been workin’ a lot. Uh, me, I mean. It’d, uh, it’d be nice to — to eat together.”

Cas doesn’t turn around, doesn’t look at Dean, but he doesn’t start typing again, either.

“Alright,” he says eventually, oddly soft, and Dean wishes he could see his face, because he feels like he’s flying blind here.

“Yeah. See you . . . soon.”

Dean ducks back into the kitchen, busying himself with preparing a couple of plates until Cas finally appears, which happens a lot sooner than Dean expects.

He approaches slowly, coming to a stop in front of the casserole dish.

“This is . . . lasagna.”

“Uh, yeah. I thought it sounded good.”

Cas frowns.

“But — it’s the mushroom one.”

“Yeah, and?” Dean says, desperately trying not to broadcast his anxiety.

“Oh,” is all Cas says, and he picks up his plate, heading for the table.

“Actually,” Dean starts, and Cas freezes. “I was thinkin’, maybe we could watch _My Fair Lady._ ”

Cas is silent for a moment, and then he turns, eyes narrowed in clear suspicion.

“You hate _My Fair Lady._ ”

“I don’t _hate_ it. Audrey Hepburn’s pretty hot.”

Cas’s lips press together, and okay, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say.

“Anyway, do you wanna watch it or not?”

Cas squints at him for a small, drawn-out eternity, before he sighs.

“Alright.”

He heads for the sofa without another word, but it’s clear, by the time Dean makes it over, that he’s waiting for Dean before he starts eating.

That’s good, right?

Dean enjoys the movie even less than usual, one eye on Cas, carefully analyzing every breath and movement for some clue as to what’s going on inside his head. Dean _thinks_ Cas looks a little perkier by the time his plate is cleared, but then, that could also just be eyestrain.

“Want seconds?” Dean asks quickly, and Cas shoots him a sidelong glance.

“Sure.” He hesitates, holding onto his plate for a moment. “It was delicious, as always. Thank you, Dean.”

And Dean appreciates the praise, he does, but Cas is doing that oddly formal thing he still does when things are awkward, and even if he is a little more relaxed, this just confirms that things are _definitely_ still awkward.

Dean flashes a smile.

“Sure,” he says, and hustles Cas’s plate into the kitchen.

By the time his second serving is gone, the doofy guy is singing the creepy song about being on the street where she lives, and Cas is apparently not paying much attention to the movie, either.

“You were home early,” he says, and Dean startles, even though he’s been watching him in his peripheral for the last five minutes straight.

“Yeah. Lasagna takes a while.”

Cas frowns, brow creased, and opens his mouth.

And then he shuts it, face falling.

“Oh,” he simply says, and then hunches over, turning his attention back to the movie.

Dean has no idea what the fuck just happened, but instead of looking guarded or tense or uncomfortable, Cas just looks _sad._

And that — that’s pretty much the opposite of what Dean’s trying to do here, and he doesn’t know where he fucked up, but all he wants is to fix it.

He almost reaches out, puts an arm around Cas, but he’s afraid that’ll make things worse, and besides, Dean figured out a long, long time ago that most of the times he touched Cas, be it in comfort or affection, it did a lot more for Dean than it did for Cas.

Still. The space between them on the sofa feels like a yawning chasm of shadowy despair, and even if he knows better, Dean just wants to reach across it.

“Hey — uh, are you busy tomorrow?”

Cas’s shoulder twitches, but he doesn’t look over.

“Possibly,” he mumbles. “Why?”

“Oh, I just — I was thinkin’ we could go the aquarium. I heard they got a, um, a lemon shark? Whatever that is.”

Cas doesn’t answer for a while, and Dean tries not to fidget; he’s probably just distracted by the movie.

(Probably.)

“Sure,” he finally sighs, sad and bitter and so frustratingly beyond Dean’s ability to help. “Why not?”

Fifteen years after the fact, Dean still remembers the first time he and Cas had a fight.

Obviously, they’d had small spats right from the start, given that Cas could be kind of obtuse and Dean was hopelessly maladjusted and they were both shit at communicating, but their first real, huge fight didn’t happen for quite a few months.

To be honest, Dean doesn’t actually remember what it was _about._ What he _does_ remember, however, is how it felt.

And hey, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed; fighting with Cas is _awful._

Anyway, they got into it over something — Cas probably said something thoughtless and Dean probably overreacted, a pattern which characterized most of their conflict in those early days — and Dean was pissed enough to storm off and leave Cas to find his way home alone, which was a pretty big no-no when Cas was ten; he wasn’t used to being out and about, was still accustomed to sitting still wherever his family told him to be, to following familiar routines, and as much as he clearly enjoyed accompanying Dean on whatever adventures there were to be had, he got anxious about the uncertainty.

So, yeah. Big fight. Dean was a sullen little douchebag, but he generally looked after Cas, anyway, and the fact that it was hours after he got home before he even started feeling guilty meant it must have been pretty serious.

Still, in the grand scheme of things, it was short; less than twenty-four hours later, some asshole kid on the playground started trash-talking Cas, which pretty much left Dean with no other option besides punching him in his stupid face and telling him to fuck off, and for whatever mysterious reason, Dean’s worrisome temper actually _fixed_ things for once. Adrenaline and rage made him bold, and as soon as the boy was on the ground, Dean went to collect Cas for playtime, like there wasn’t any question Cas would follow.

And it paid off.

But the fucked up part of it is, Dean’s always been secretly grateful to that kid (even though he was a dick and had no business talking shit about Cas), because there was a harrowing few minutes there when Sam and Dean arrived at the playground where Cas _wouldn’t look at him._ And way back when, Cas _always_ looked at Dean, like it was a goddamn hobby, and awkwardly shuffling onto the scene with Sam in tow, only to have Cas stay turned away, ignoring them, ignoring _Dean —_ yeah, no thanks. Dean knew right then and there that he never wanted it to happen again.

And no, that didn’t mean they never _fought_ again; but kid-Dean was a little bit smarter than grown-up-Dean, and once was enough to learn his lesson. Even when they were fighting, Dean _always_ walked Cas home, and once hugs started being a part of that routine, they stayed, too. No matter how pissed they were at each other, or how ugly the fight, Dean still saw Cas to his door and gave him some kind of hug once they were there.

And there was something about that, about walking side by side with Cas, fury driving overquick strides for both of them, and _still_ embracing when they got to his house — even if they weren’t even speaking _—_ that was exactly the reassurance Dean needed to trust they were gonna get right back to normal, just like they always did.

Not for the first time, now that he’s grown, Dean wishes there was still a door Cas needed to be walked to.

Because right about now, he could use some reassurance.

Their trip to the aquarium is a far cry from the last one, even if Dean feels weirdly in the doghouse this time, too.

Despite his efforts toward a nice night in with Cas’s favorite food and a not-that-guilty-pleasure movie which Dean usually refuses to watch with him, Cas seems even _more_ subdued today.

Dean doesn’t know what to do. The whole fucking point of this was to stay together, but the distance just keeps growing.

They save the sharks for last (Dean’s idea, because maybe Cas will leave in a better mood if he’s fresh from shark-watching), and it’s surreal how different their meanderings feel this time; the first time around, they were just getting back on their feet after a fight, and they weren’t even really dating, and yet _—_ Dean still felt more like they were there _together._

Now, though, even standing right next to him, looking some combination of alien and ethereal in the bright blue glow of the tanks, Cas seems to be a million miles away.

So when it’s time to move on, when a cluster of grade-schoolers start pressing in impatiently and Cas just stares listlessly into the water, Dean lets his panicked instincts guide him. He reaches out and takes Cas’s hand, and since he doesn’t know how to hold on to him in the way that matters, he doesn’t drop it, even once they’ve moved away. Cas can just let go, if that’s what he wants.

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t squeeze back — looks down at their joined hands in surprise and consternation — but he doesn’t let go, either, and Dean breathes a little easier.

Still, they get to the sharks, and Cas just hovers close, doesn’t cling to Dean’s arm or put his nose practically to the glass, the way he did the first time. Instead, he simply stands there, face blank, staring forward.

As for Dean — he can’t care about the sharks today, not when it feels like _they’re_ bloody in the water, something dangerous circling around them. He shifts his gaze to the glass, seeking out Cas’s reflection to watch his face.

He finds Cas looking back.

They don’t say a word.

Cas so often doesn’t understand Dean, but after over fifteen years, he still knows him pretty well.

Dean is not big on talking, treats show-don’t-tell like life advice, and more often than not, you can’t just listen to what he says.

You have to watch what he does.

That first time John Winchester appeared, cast his dark pall over their happy little routine, Cas found a lot of reasons to hate him.

First of all, he pushed Dean, and worse, he did it when Dean was trying to _help_ him. As young as he was, Cas knew enough to treasure this aspect of Dean, and even if he didn’t, he loved Dean with a fierceness that made any act of malice or hurt against him an unforgivable offense.

Second of all, he upset Dean enough that Cas had to walk home _alone._

The incident itself was bad enough, leaving Cas anxious and frustrated and stricken by a sense of helplessness, because Dean was hurting, and Cas could do nothing to help. Having to make the journey home with only these unhappy feelings for company, when he was no longer accustomed to doing so, only to then trudge up his front steps without the lingering warmth of Dean’s arms around him — it was the worst night Cas had had in a long time.

Worse still, he didn’t know what to expect from the morning.

Dean was strange the next day, hardly speaking and avoiding Cas’s eyes, but his demeanor was more shy than angry, so Cas decided to risk asking him if he was okay.

“Yeah, Cas,” Dean said quietly. “I’m good.”

Clearly, he was not, but Cas wasn’t sure making Dean grumpy would necessarily be an improvement, so he supposed he’d have to just let it go.

“What about you? Are you okay?”

Cas blinked, caught off-guard. He’d been too preoccupied with _Dean’s_ mood to consider his own, but honestly, he was still feeling _bad_ and _unsettled,_ after last night.

“Yes.”

Dean studied him with serious eyes.

“You sure? You, um, you look upset.” He looked down. “All morning, actually.”

Oh. Cas was surprised, though he shouldn’t have been. Dean paid more attention to things than other people gave him credit for.

“Yes.” He hesitated, and Dean just looked at him, troubled and waiting for the truth, even though Cas was only just now sorting out what it was. “No. Your d—um. Yesterday scared me, I mean. And you didn’t walk me home.”

Dean looked pained.

“Oh,” he said, and then he frowned down at his worksheet and went back to work.

That was alright, Cas decided. That was last night, and Dean must have been much more upset than him; there was nothing he could really do about it now.

Still, Cas struggled to focus, fidgeting with his pen and paper and barely managing to get the worksheet filled out before class ended, and he filed toward the exit with a heavy heart, confident the rest of the day would just be more of the same.

Then Dean slipped an arm around him when they hit the bottleneck right before the door.

“You got your lunch, Cas?”

“Yes.” It wasn’t an exciting prospect; Cas’s favorite was peanut butter and jelly, but his mother almost always gave him tuna or egg salad, and he wasn’t brave enough to ask her for anything different. A small part of him thought she might stop giving him a sandwich at all.

“Cool.”

Dean didn’t let go of him until they reached the table, and even though it was a short walk, Cas felt substantially better by the time they got there.

And then something extraordinary happened.

Ellen must have felt bad for Dean, since his dad’s visit had gone like that, because she’d put a generously-sized slice of cherry pie in with his turkey sandwich.

They both looked at it for a moment, awed — and then Dean slid it over toward Cas without a word, promptly reaching for his sandwich like nothing happened.

 _Surely,_ Dean wasn’t trying to give his pie to _Cas._ Not when he was so downcast, himself.

But Cas ate his tuna sandwich and his celery sticks, and when he was done, Dean pushed the pie over a little further.

“That’s yours,” Cas finally said, and Dean shrugged, taking a sip from his milk carton.

“Nah, it’s okay. You eat it.”

“But you love pie.”

Dean pursed his lips.

“Well, you had to eat tuna and celery.”

“Yes, but you—"

“If you don’t eat it, I’m throwin’ it away,” Dean threatened sullenly, though they both knew Dean would _never._ Even if he _hated_ pie, he wouldn’t throw out perfectly good food.

Nonetheless, this was clearly important to Dean, so Cas carefully picked up the slice and took a bite.

“Not like that,” Dean said, frowning, and turned the pie around. “You like the crust best, right? It’s better to start with your favorite part, in case you get full.”

Cas couldn’t really argue with this point, so he did, and Dean watched him out of the corner of his eye while he ate. Not once did he look envious, even though Ellen made _delicious_ pie; if anything, he looked sort of relaxed and satisfied, a far cry from his mood this morning.

Still, Cas pretended to get full about halfway through the slice, and insisted Dean finish it.

Dean gave him an unimpressed look, because Cas wasn’t a very good liar, and he probably knew exactly what he was doing — but he looked happy while he ate the rest, and that small, cherry-filling-stained smile made Cas’s world feel right once again.

Dean must not have realized that, though, because he was particularly attentive for the rest of the day, getting Cas’s box of colored pencils for him in art and jumping in front of a stray dodgeball in PE so Cas wouldn’t get out.

(Which was stupid, because Cas was arguably better than Dean at dodging them, and as soon as Dean was out, he usually made sure to get hit so they could sit together on the sidelines — but he appreciated it, anyway).

And then when they got back to Bobby’s house, Dean put in _The Last Unicorn_ — Cas’s favorite — even though he always got embarrassed about watching it, and by that time, Cas was _sure_ Dean was doing it all on purpose.

A part of him felt bad about it, because Cas couldn’t imagine how Dean must have felt, last night, and Cas’s feelings weren’t really important, in comparison.

But mostly, Cas sensed that this was something Dean needed to do, that it had helped improve Dean’s mood as much as it had Cas’s, so he didn’t say a word. Instead, he just let Dean draw a blanket around both of them and pretended not to notice when Dean started sniffling at the end.

And when Dean held on a little longer than usual when they got to Cas’s house that night — Cas clung right back.

So when Dean takes off from work early so he can serve Cas his favorite dish, follows it up with a movie Cas loves and Dean hates, and then proposes a trip to the aquarium, where he has the fucking nerve to _hold Cas’s hand —_ Cas knows exactly what’s happening.

Dean feels guilty.

And since he can’t bring himself to just say sorry, or better yet, resign himself to being fucking content with just Cas for the rest of his goddamn life like he was _supposed_ to, he resorts to the same tactics he used as a child, and Cas just endures it, trying not to speculate on whether there’s more to his guilt than Cas even knows.

Because now that he’s had a few days to think, now that he’s seen Dean tiptoeing around him, watching him when he thinks Cas isn’t looking, even though he _knows_ Cas is almost always looking — Cas is pretty sure the Star Trek marathon and Charlie’s mysterious crisis are both utter bullshit.

And fine, maybe Dean went on a drinking binge and lied about it because he was trying to gather the nerve to ask Cas for what he wanted, no doubt well-aware that the only thing _worse_ would be if he dumped Cas altogether. But Cas made a concentrated effort to outgrow his natural gullibility ages ago, and he knows the responsible thing to do is search for every explanation possible, or else he might just miss the right one altogether.

So he wonders what else happened while he was gone, and once he’s forced himself down that path, he must then wonder if Dean slipped up and started treating this like an open relationship before he actually asked for it.

If that’s how he figured out he _wanted_ it.

And that — that’s difficult for Cas to believe. Say what you will about Dean’s flaws, about his failings in a relationship — Cas has witnessed them all — but don’t say Dean Winchester is a cheater, because he’s not. He’ll firebomb your entire relationship because he’s _afraid_ of failing you long before he’ll actually do anything to seriously fail you, and if he makes you a promise, he will try in good faith to keep it.

But then, Dean has also never tried an open relationship, at either party’s request, and Cas would have said he never would.

Yet here they are.

So maybe Dean did go out and meet someone, or maybe he even ran into someone he already knew, and maybe he made a mistake. And maybe he felt guilty, enough to drown himself in hard liquor, and maybe he felt even worse because he realized it didn’t _feel_ like a mistake, because he kind of wanted to have that option all the time.

Because whatever he’d been doing with Cas, that month prior, it apparently didn’t compare to what he _could_ be doing with someone else. And maybe he’s not sure how much Cas knows, or maybe he’s just smart enough to know this is pretty much killing Cas, either way, and now — he’s trying to make it up to him.

The _fucker._

Because as awful as Cas feels, every time Dean does something sweet for him, anxiously watching for Cas’s reaction, his motivation clear — it makes him feel better, too. It means Dean cares, in some way, for whatever reason, that Cas is suffering.

And as long as they still have that — well, Cas thinks he probably cares enough to make up the difference.

So his anger fades, inevitably gives way to a loneliness and tired longing he was stupid enough to think he’d never have to experience again, and when three days have passed since Dean held his hand at the aquairum and he hasn’t touched him again since, Cas gets desperate.

When Dean moves to turn out the light before bed, Cas shoves caution headfirst into the gusts and reaches for him.

“Uh,” Dean says. Despite his hesitation, Cas presses closer and throws a leg over Dean’s, hoping his intent is clear.

Honestly, Cas could take or leave the actual sex, but he feels a keen and terrible need to be close, to have Dean _touch_ him, and this is the only way he can think of to ask for it.

Cas kisses him, dismayed by how tense Dean feels against him.

“What’s up, Cas?” he whispers, and even in hesitation, in _suspicion,_ the graze of his mouth as he speaks is a comfort.

“I want—" Cas starts. _I want you to hold me._ But he can’t say that; they don’t say things like that, and he doesn’t think Dean will be okay with it if he starts. What’s more, he’s not even confident he can force the words out.

“I want you,” he settles for, instead, and Dean pauses for a long, terrifying moment full of potential rejection, and then he sighs.

Without another word, he kisses Cas back, and Cas falls into it, grateful, worried, questioning and blind all at once.

He wishes, not for the first time, that he didn’t need so much.

***

They kiss, and Cas wraps around Dean as best he can, and then Dean’s fingers find the hem of his t-shirt and pull up, up, up, until Cas’s chest is a canvas laid bare for Dean’s vision.

Dean looks at him for a long moment, long enough that the antsiness comes back, and all Cas wants to do is press back up against him, have Dean enfold him in the warmest embrace he’s ever known, to give some reassurance that this won’t be the last time, not even close; that he’s still wanted.

Dean swallows, and then peels off his own shirt.

“Arms up,” he says quietly, not meeting Cas’s eye, and on another night, Cas might raise a brow at the command.

Tonight, though — he just lifts his arms, waiting to see what Dean will do.

Carefully, Dean turns his shirt right-side-out, and then even more carefully, pulls it down over Cas’s head. He looks at Cas, eyes roaming over his t-shirt where it sits, warm and just a shade too big on Cas’s body, and just like that, the last of his tension leaves him.

“Okay,” he whispers, still not meeting Cas’s gaze, though Cas is staring, confused and uncertain. He reaches out and gently pulls Cas’s arms down.

“Okay,” he repeats, and just as gently pushes Cas onto his back, mouth finding the dips and hollows of his jaw and neck and collar, and Cas doesn’t dare question any of it. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t want to interrupt Dean’s focus in this task, opting instead to thread his fingers through Dean’s hair, to mouth at his neck, to arch up against him when it’s time for Dean to tug off his sweats and boxers. He waits, barely managing patience, when Dean clumsily tears off his own, and then he wraps his arms around Dean and pulls him down for a kiss Dean returns with gratifying intensity.

Sex pretty much always feels good; Cas has never been in a situation where he felt compelled to have it for any other reason than being in the mood, specifically for sex, and nor has he ever been picky. But sex with Dean is a thing that transcends _feeling good,_ because no other kind of sex involves Dean’s hands on him, Dean’s green eyes looking into his, the familiar cadence of Dean’s breaths, short and fast with this sordid exertion, or the knowledge that he is wanted by Dean.

And _this_ , when Cas’s skin has felt cold and numb for days, when his body has felt the absence of an affection he has by some miracle learned to take for granted — this feels _amazing_.

They stay like that, mouths fitted together, unhurried but determined, bodies sweat-damp and twined around one another, until Dean breaks away and tries to draw downward, destination obvious. And while normally, Cas wouldn’t dream of objecting to Dean’s mouth on him, that’s not what he wants tonight.

He stops Dean, holding fast with his arms around him, because tonight, he can’t bear the distance.

“What do you want?” Dean asks, brows knitted, but his voice is soft, faintly urgent, and something in Cas settles, because this is still Dean, the way Dean always is when they do this, unfailingly determined to meet Cas’s needs.

“Just—" Cas starts, a little dizzy, a little lost. “I want . . .”

“Yeah?” Dean prompts him, ducking his head to mouth along Cas’s neck, and Cas tilts his head, baring his throat for more as he clings.

“Could you — will you—" Dean bites down, gentle but enough to sting, and Cas inhales sharply, fingers curling into the skin of his back.

“Anything,” Dean murmurs, soothing the mark with his tongue, and Cas shuts his eyes.

“Inside me,” he manages, breathless, and knows a moment’s uncertainty when Dean stills. “Please?”

It comes out as a whisper, laid to rest right in the shell of Dean’s ear, and he shudders.

“Of course.” He raises his head, gives Cas a soft, clumsy kiss that doesn’t quite land, and then repeats, “Anything.”

Cas closes his eyes in relief, biting back a nonsense sound of complaint when Dean draws away, because they can’t do this without supplies, no matter how badly Cas wants to remain pressed up against each other, touching across as many points as possible.

Still, he runs his palms across Dean’s arms and back, lightly, though all he wants to do is cling, and he’s grateful when Dean appears to hurry.

The instant he moves back, setting the lube and condoms on the bed, Cas re-wraps his arms around him, drawing him down for another kiss, desperate and messy and returned with gratifying fervor.

“It’s okay,” Dean tells him, and Cas wonders what he thinks is wrong, or if he doesn’t, if he’s just telling Cas it’s okay to need this. “I’ve got you.”

Dean kisses him again, palm warm against Cas’s cheek, and then he reaches for the lube.

It’s hard to be patient. Dean is so close, knelt in the V of Cas’s legs, and even with one broad hand on the back of his thigh, the other headed for undeniably intimate places, it doesn’t seem close enough. Several days’ worth of strange tension and discomfiting silences seem to remain present here, and it feels like more than he can bear to leave his hands empty, to have to look at Dean across any distance great enough that he cannot feel the warmth of his breath.

Still, he manages. He makes himself stay put, stay patient, carefully keeping his eyes on Dean, even when the first brush of his finger has them fighting to close. Dean grips his thigh with his free hand, the gentle pressure a poor rival to that of him slowly working Cas open, and Cas just watches him, trembling through the brief sting and the growing pleasure and wondering what Dean is thinking.

His brow is furrowed a little, focused, teeth clamped down on his bottom lip as he oversees his efforts, and though Cas appreciates those efforts and that focus, something about the lack of eye contact is staggeringly lonely.

Like Dean can read his mind, he looks up.

“Please,” Cas says, not sure what he’s asking for, and Dean’s expression goes soft, fingers stilling. Cas involuntarily squirms a little, body frustrated where the mind is not, and that rough palm slides around his thigh, back up to his hip to hold him still.

Cas takes a deep breath, and relaxes back into the bed, holding Dean's gaze all the while. In his peripheral, he can see Dean swallow, Adam's apple bobbing with the movement.

His fingers start moving again, scissoring gently, and Cas bites back a sob as Dean continues looking at him, gaze focused and dark as he works, carefully watching Cas’s expression. They breathe in the silence, and even as Cas relaxes into it, small sparks of pleasure dancing through him, he can’t complain about the pace. They’re moving slow, tonight, but that’s fine; all Cas’s desperation is for it to just _last,_ because he doesn’t know when he’ll be given this again.

When a third digit finally slips in, the barest sense of burning before it all gives way to a full, terrible pleasure Cas can’t help but move into, Dean finally speaks.

“You good?” he whispers, voice somehow rough and soft and quiet all at once, like he’s trying not to disturb this, whatever it is, and have it wake and be changed. Cas understands; Cas is being quiet, too, quiet as he can, because he knows the things he’s holding back probably _will_ change it — might even break it into pieces.

“Yes.”

Dean nods, eyes searching Cas’s as his hand moves, fingers pressing a little deeper, twisting and stretching and—

Cas jerks upward, unable to stop the small moan from spilling out of him.

“Sorry,” Dean says, biting his lip, and then does it again.

“ _Dean,_ ” Cas reprimands, but it comes out as a plea, and Dean is still staring at his face, eyes wide and nearly black. Then he’s sliding his fingers out and backing away, and Cas can’t help a dry sob at the emptiness and the distance.

“Sh,” Dean murmurs, reaching for his hand even as he settles back against the headboard, legs stretched out in front of him. He squeezes it, tugging Cas after him, and Cas lurches upright and crawls over, desperate and ashamed of it but hopeful that he’ll get what he needs, anyway.

As soon as he’s close enough, Dean’s arm circles his waist, dragging him the rest of the way. Cas’s knees slide forward on either side of Dean’s thighs until their chests brush, and Dean’s hands move to his hips, steadying him. Cas rests his cheek against Dean’s hair, breathing deep and waiting, and then there’s a tentative pressure at his entrance and Dean’s fingers are slipping back in, working deep.

Cas clutches at Dean’s shoulders, panting as he rocks his hips back into delirious sensation, too much and not enough.

“How you doin’, sweetheart?”

Cas manages to pull back a little, looking down into dark green eyes.

“Good — ready,” he gasps, and it’s true; as much as he might want this to last for some small, stolen eternity, ‘not enough’ is quickly becoming the bulk of the feeling and more than anything, right now, Cas just wants to be close to Dean, and this is the best way he can think to do it.

“Okay,” Dean breathes, shutting his eyes and slowly drawing his fingers out. “Lemme just—"

Cas wraps his arms around Dean, leaning back with him as Dean tilts forward to reach for the lube. He curls down when Dean leans back, pressing clumsy kisses to the side of Dean's face and neck as he hastily uncaps it and slicks himself up.

“Ready?” he confirms, and Cas nods, straightening and squeezing him tighter, and lets Dean guide his hips down a little until he can feel him nudging up against him, blunt and hot as he carefully begins to press inside.

“Yes,” Cas chokes out, feeling himself close around the head and struggling not to just slam down and take him all, struggling to just let Dean set this slow, careful pace. “Dean—"

He moves with the pressure of Dean’s hands on his hips, gradually sliding down as he stretches around him, scrambling and eager to adjust, to welcome this gift of intimacy the way he wants. Dean takes a deep breath, and though Cas can’t see his face, he can feel his shoulders, taut beneath Cas’s palms, his whole body tense against him as he eases inside.

“Fuck,” he mumbles, twitching. Cas kisses his temple with a soft sigh, and Dean jerks up, abruptly bottoming out and turning the sigh into a hoarse cry. “Sorry — sorry, you okay?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Cas pants, and it’s so _much,_ but he moves anyway, circling his hips and drawing another beautiful, shuddered breath from Dean’s mouth. “You can — please, please move—"

Dean shakes his head, pressing his face into Cas’s shoulder.

“Not yet,” he murmurs, squeezing Cas’s hips. “Just — just a minute.”

“I’m _fine_ , it’s okay, you can—"

Dean huffs a laugh, tilting his chin up and kissing Cas quiet.

“I really, really can’t,” he whispers against his mouth, and Cas flushes, nodding and relaxing against him, content to wait. If he stops to think about it, Dean’s not inconsiderably bigger than three of his fingers, and while right now, some stubborn part of him _wants_ to feel it tomorrow, wants the reminder that Dean kissed him and held him close and took some amount of pleasure in Cas’s body, the responsible thing to do is probably to start slow.

Dean kisses him again, soft and languid, fingers still curled around Cas’s hips. Cas can feel the muscles in Dean’s thighs tense against his ass as he draws his knees up, planting his feet on the bed, and then _finally,_ starts to move.

“ _Dean,_ ” Cas breathes, arching into Dean as the first small, sharp thrust jolts his whole body upward, and Dean just groans in answer and does it again, and again, and again, until Cas abruptly realizes he’s doing nothing but clinging to Dean’s shoulders and enjoying each wave of pleasure as Dean’s hips roll up and down.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, pressing his cheek to Dean’s, and unsteadily lifts himself, shivering at the feel of Dean sliding out of him partway, and then drops back down.

“ _Shit,_ ” Dean swears, and Cas lifts up again, a little higher this time, though he is loathe to create the distance, and when he swiftly lowers himself, Dean pushes up to meet him.

Cas buries his cries into Dean’s hair, both the first one, at the feeling of Dean, thick and hot and so impossibly deep inside him, and the second one, when he pulls back out, urging Cas upward and leaving him unpleasantly empty.

And then they move, meet in the middle once again, and Dean’s hands slide up to press against Cas’s back, holding him close.

“Jesus, Cas, you feel so—" He cuts off as Cas rises up, evidently opting to devote his attention to thrusting up into him as Cas slams back down, grinding into his lap once he’s seated. “ _Cas_ —"

“Tell me,” he gasps, insensate with pleasure and reckless with his need. “Tell me, Dean, tell me—"

Dean grips his back, holds Cas flush against him as his strokes pick up speed.

“What? Tell you what—"

Cas digs his fingers into the meat of Dean’s shoulders, vexed and embarrassed and overwhelmed by the feel of Dean moving inside him, of Dean’s skin and the worn cotton of his t-shirt sliding along his cock where it’s trapped between the two, on every single stroke.

“Tell me — tell me how good I feel—" he manages, and Dean breaks rhythm, jerking up into Castiel, hard, and groans.

“Yeah — god, yeah, you don’t even know — you feel so fucking good, Cas, always do, always so damn perfect, like you were made for me — so, so good, so tight and hot and _perfect—"_ he repeats, fucking up into Cas with short, hard strokes, and the words are like a balm on his soul, obliterating his rhythm as he shakes and shudders and clings, clenching around Dean and letting him carry him through this, unable to do much more than hold on.

“Yes,” he gasps, frantically grasping at Dean’s shoulders, eventually just letting his hands slide until his arms are wrapped around him and Cas can’t possibly get any closer.

“Wish I could do this all night,” Dean mumbles, sweat-damp cheek rubbing along Cas’s collarbone. “Fuckin’ love being inside you, love how you feel around me—"

Cas’s eyes sting, blood rushing and body overhot and so, so sensitive, and his thighs are burning and exhausted and he’s pretty sure he’s hardly doing anything at this point, mostly just taking it as Dean’s hips work, burying himself inside Cas again and again and it’s so good and he doesn’t ever want it to stop, wants Dean to keep talking and fucking him even though he knows that the two combined are driving him past the point of no return far sooner than he wanted to be there.

“Dean — yes, fuck, _Dean—"_ Cas feebly tries to muster his strength, recover his rhythm, but he’s a mess right now, barely holding on, and it’s all he can do to hold himself up enough that there’s space for Dean to move.

And _God,_ does Dean make use of it.

They move like that, a filthy chorus of grunts and moans and gasped curses, Dean muttering his broken song of praise in Cas’s ear the whole while, until finally his thrusts begin to falter.

“Cas — Cas—"

Cas just nods, tightening his embrace, because he’s close, he’s so close—

And then Dean lets go of him, starts trying to pull away and reach between them, clearly determined to make sure Cas comes first, and to use his hand to do it.

Cas seizes his wrist, shaking his head even as he keeps rocking into Dean’s thrusts, even as the heat coiling within keeps building.

He makes himself lean back enough to meet Dean’s eyes, and a part of him is surprised he doesn’t come then and there.

Dean is _glorious,_ as he always is, but there’s something about him right now, the green of his eyes nearly eclipsed in his lust, sweat beading all around his forehead and a flush darkening his cheeks and neck and chest, his muscles visibly straining with effort, because Cas is hardly helping at all. There’s something so open and desperate in his expression, in the way he’s searching Cas’s face, for further instruction, because this, all of this, the vibrant wreck he’s turning himself into, riding that edge but refusing to cross it, is all because Cas _asked._

And from the moment he did, Dean’s been giving him everything he wanted.

Cas closes his eyes, guiding Dean’s hand to settle on its former place on his back, and then presses close again, until the only thing separating them is the t-shirt, now damp with sweat and Cas’s precome, Dean’s sole request in this encounter.

“Like this,” he whispers, and after a moment, Dean clutches him tighter, holding him in place against him like some jealously guarded treasure in danger of being snatched away.

Like he’s precious.

Cas nearly forgets, both the last few weeks and the last decade-and-a-half, and just barely stops himself from telling Dean he loves him right before he comes.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you, oh, God, just like that, just let go for me, Cas, _Cas_ —" he chants, squeezing him tight and fucking him through it, and Cas just clings and lets go and spills all over Dean’s chest and shirt, and even with stars bursting behind his eyelids and white-hot pleasure flooding across and under his skin, leaving his brain a useless muddle, he doesn’t say it, just bites his lip and shudders against Dean until the last wave recedes and he’s left collapsed against him, held up only by his tight embrace.

“Come, Dean,” Cas mumbles, a little dazed, and Dean’s hips stutter and jerk and he moans.

“Fuck, Cas — in or out? Cas, tell me, I’m gonna—"

“In,” Cas says, wondering when Dean noticed the lack of condom, if he knew from the beginning, but not really caring either way, and then Dean’s movements slow, turning sharp and erratic, and a moment later Dean gasps. He manages one last hard thrust before he comes, Cas’s name tumbling past his lips in a shout, and Cas can feel it, can feel the warmth deep inside him, clenches tired muscles around Dean’s cock as he fills him and Cas’s own dick gives a rallying twitch at the sensation of it all, because closeness and connection and _want_ was what he needed from Dean, and he’s received it in spades.

“Thank you,” he whispers, gently petting Dean’s hair as he shudders through the last of his climax, hips rocking in small motions and breaths harsh and uneven.

Dean doesn’t respond, understandably preoccupied, but after a minute, after his gasps have steadied into soft pants, after his muscles have stopped twitching and finally gone lax — he suddenly twists, rolling Cas onto his back and kissing him, a hot, demanding, breath-stealing kiss that Cas doesn’t hesitate to yield to, melting back into the mattress and leaving his mouth soft and open for the taking.

Eventually, Dean pulls away, but he doesn’t go far, one hand braced against the bed by Cas’s face and the other left behind to cradle Cas’s jaw.

His hair’s a wreck, face still flushed and shiny, but the most striking thing of all is the way he’s looking at Cas, soft and wanting all at once, and for a moment, Cas can almost believe Dean needs just as much, that this meant just as much to him as it did to Cas.

He leans down, kisses Cas again, and rolls away.

Cas misses him instantly.

Dean gets out of bed after that, leaving Cas vaguely panicked, but he’s not gone for long; he returns a couple minutes later with a damp washcloth, settling back in next to Cas and using his free hand to brush a few stray, damp tendrils of hair back from his face. Cas closes his eyes and leans into the touch, and thinks he hears Dean sigh.

Dean cleans Cas up first, gentle and thorough as the cloth sweeps across his skin. His movements slow as it dips between Cas's thighs, and there’s a slight pause before Cas feels Dean's fingers instead, tracing curiously through his own release where it’s trickled out of him.

And then his fingers slide a little further, the pad of his thumb suddenly pressing against Cas’s rim, pressing his come back inside, and Cas lets out a yelp.

The thumb retreats, swiftly replaced by the damp cloth, and when Cas opens his eyes to glare at him, Dean is wearing a soft, amused half-smile.

“Sorry,” he whispers, and it’s clear he’s not.

Cas shrugs, closing his eyes again.

“Another time,” he promises, cryptic, and knows he’s understood when the cloth stills.

Then Dean lets out a quiet chuckle and finishes cleaning Cas up before scrubbing himself down with considerably less finesse and tossing the cloth to the floor. Cas reluctantly heaves himself upright, then, reaching for the bottom of the t-shirt — only to have Dean’s hand close around his wrist, stopping him.

Dean doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Leave it,” he says quietly, and Cas doesn’t understand, has no idea what he’s thinking or why he even wanted Cas to wear it in the first place; but Dean didn’t ask any questions, simply gave Cas what he needed, and it doesn’t occur to Cas to refuse him the same.

He lets it go, lying back down, and to his surprise, Dean follows suit, wrapping around him with a sigh, and no more is said.

It’s been a long time, but tonight, Cas sleeps easy.

***

For the first time in what feels like forever, Dean wakes up in a tangle of _Cas,_ warm and heavy and reeking of sex and himself and a little bit of Dean, too, and it’s a relief that Cas is out cold, because Dean feels his eyes well up a little at it all.

He’s been a fucking dumbass.

He’s not sure what last night was for Cas, though it felt like it must have been different for both of them. And he almost didn’t let it happen, almost pulled away when Cas straddled him, almost told him ‘no,’ like denying Cas anything wasn’t always a hundred fucking times worse for Dean.

But he didn’t. He told himself he could do that much for Cas, at least, and in the end it wasn’t totally about or for Cas, after all. In the end, Dean got to make love to Cas, and maybe a little of the reverse, though that could be his imagination, and now he gets to wake up cuddled close, Dean’s come-stained t-shirt rucked up around Cas’s ribs like he didn’t lie, like he really is Dean’s, and god _damn_ it does it feel like everything.

How could he think, even for a moment, let alone two weeks, that he could give this up? That staying together would be worth anything if all Dean did with it was try and keep them apart?

Well, Dean’s an idiot like that, and Cas’s breath is warm against his neck, so close Dean can feel each rise and fall of his chest, and since Cas isn’t awake to judge him for it, Dean turns into him and presses a kiss to the top of his head.

Cas slumbers away, dead to the world, but Dean still lingers in bed for as long as he can get away with, simply holding on. Eventually, though, reality intrudes, and he reluctantly disentangles himself, pulling the comforter up and tucking it around Cas to keep him warm, since Dean won’t be there to do it.

And then he heads to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suspected Cheating: In light of Dean’s request and the probable lie of the drinking binge with Charlie, Cas comes to the conclusion that Dean most likely cheated while Cas was in New York, and that this may have been the primary factor in his wanting an open relationship.
> 
> References to past child abuse: A flashback of Cas’s references the time John came to town and, drunk, shoved Dean.
> 
> Details/tags for the explicit sexual content: Wanting closeness and reassurance, Cas initiates sex with Dean. Dean follows all his requests, unspoken and otherwise, which is very meaningful for Cas.  
> Tags: Bottom Castiel/Top Dean, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Unsafe Sex, Barebacking, Lap Sex, Some Dirty Talk, Minor Comeplay (this assumes the author fully understands what these tags mean and while they’re _pretty_ sure they do, they apologize if they turn out to be wrong. Like seriously, never trust me, I mean well but I'm also an idiot).


	4. we're falling apart, still we hold together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: unhealthy coping mechanisms, flirting between Dean/other, implied homophobic John, implied sexual content (bottom!Dean), more details in the notes, please tell me if I missed something.
> 
> Chapter title from _All We Know_ , by The Chainsmokers feat. Phoebe Ryan.
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading, and for sharing your thoughts about things ♡

Cas doesn’t tell Pamela.

Pride is rather separate from shamelessness, and Cas still has his. Pamela watched them work their way to the breaking point for five months; she has a fairly good idea of just how far back and how deep Cas’s feelings go, and though he may not have expressed it in so many words, he knows she recognized the giddiness of what he presumed to be his triumph.

Cas, against all odds, finally got what he wanted.

And then he couldn’t keep it.

“Things are going well,” he lies, when she asks how he is, because how can he possibly say that his weakness in a relationship ultimately lay with his ability to sexually satisfy?

Even the thought has him coloring, the sandwich Dean left him for lunch turning leaden in his stomach.

“Mhm.” She cocks her head. “What kinds of things?”

He tries and fails not to fidget.

“What do you mean, what kind of things?”

“When you say things are going well,” she says. “What things are you thinking of?”

He blinks.

“Well — it was a generic question. That’s just — how you answer it.”

Pamela’s not stupid.

“Oh, but it’s not a generic question, because this isn’t a generic setting.” She levels him with a stern gaze. “This is therapy; what’s more, it’s not your first session. Either you were thinking of something specific, _or_ you’re deliberately treating it like a generic question, which is also a red flag.”

Cas fights to hold her gaze, but ultimately can’t.

“Alright. Then, Dean. Things with Dean are going well.”

She considers this.

“Well, we do often talk about Dean.” He relaxes, but then — “But honestly, Castiel, you don’t seem like things are going well.”

The tip of her pen hovers close, nearly kissing the page, and Cas scrambles for some kind of answer that will thwart that final connection.

“He works a lot,” he blurts out, relieved to find it’s not really a lie. “There’s been an increase in business. As you know, he co-owns the shop, so . . .”

The pen suddenly flips, cap a rival suitor gently tapping at the page.

“I see. So . . . you feel neglected?”

Rejected, more like, though they’re both apt enough words. Still, they seem rather clinical and precise for the grotesque and disfigured wound he feels like he’s nursing, from which he’s struggling not to just bleed out.

“I suppose.”

She narrows her eyes, and the pen turns once more, glistening ballpoint poised for action.

“I see. So, you’d like it if he had more time for you?”

 _I’d like it if he_ wanted _me, period._

“Of course,” he says, so focused on keeping his posture relaxed, he fails to mind his tone.

Her eyes flick downward, and she scratches out a quick note. _Damn it._ He can’t believe he ever laughed at Dean for dreading that.

“When was the last time you went on a date?”

Cas thinks of the guilt trip to the aquarium, to Dean’s hand, big and warm and not holding on tightly enough; to his face, stark in the blue glow of the tank as Cas watched him in the glass and Dean watched back.

“Last Saturday.”

“Oh? Where’d you go?”

“He took me to the aquarium.”

“So Dean instigated it?”

“Yes.” Cas tries to look happy, but he’s never been good at pretending.

“Did you have a nice time?”

“I always enjoy the aquarium.”

She gives him a sharp look.

“Did you have a nice time with _Dean_?”

“I always—” he starts, and she raises her eyebrows.

He sighs, and decides to tell a partial truth.

“Honestly, I think he felt guilty. About — how things have been lately.”

“About not having time for you,” she clarifies, watching him closely.

“Right.”

“Mhm. And what makes you think he felt guilty?”

Cas shrugs.

“Just . . . a feeling. Dean’s not — he doesn’t usually . . .” Cas trails off, struggling to determine what he can tell her without revealing everything, and surprised to find he still wants to tell her _something._ The whole reason he started coming to see her was so he could understand things better, and a huge percentage of those ‘things’ he wanted to understand was _Dean._ And maybe, if he can do that, he’ll be able to figure out where he messed up. “He — he held my hand.”

Pamela waits for him to elaborate, and he takes a deep breath, focusing on the little violet growing on her desk.

“Dean isn’t — he’s not affectionate in public. Usually, the only reason a stranger would guess we were a couple is by the way we argue.”

“I see. Do you wish he were?”

Cas hesitates, feeling vaguely like he has a hand in someone else’s cookie jar.

“It’s not that I want other people to know. But—” He cuts off, swallowing against his shame.

“But?” she echoes, soft and encouraging, and Cas supposes that if anyone is to know how weak he is, it might as well be a trained professional.

“I wish he was affectionate all the time,” he mumbles. He thinks back to those few times when he’d been busy with work, when he knew — or thought he knew — Dean was deliberately being a nuisance, that he might revel in Cas’s snappish rebuttal, and wonders if he was reading things all wrong.

Maybe if he’d set down his pen, turned into Dean’s playful touches, pulled him close — maybe Dean’s own attention wouldn’t have wandered.

“Ah.” There’s a lot happening in that single syllable, but the bulk of it is sympathy.

“I know I shouldn’t,” he adds hastily. “I know that — that it’s asking too much.”

She tilts her head, frowning, and in the moment it takes her to answer, he can see her weighing her options.

“Have you?” she decides on.

“Have I what?”

“Have you asked?”

Cas sighs.

“Of course not. I know better.”

She furrows her brow, mouth opening, and he quickly continues.

“That isn’t who Dean is.” At least, it isn’t with Cas; but if Cas has learned anything the last couple weeks, it’s that Cas is different from Dean’s other partners. “That’s not who _we_ are.”

She makes another note, lips pursed, and then glances back up.

“Alright.” She hums. “So, this is your first relationship, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And would you say you felt this way — this desire for more affection — _before_ you started dating? Or is this something that came with the shift in your dynamic?”

“Before,” he answers immediately.

She nods.

“Do you feel like you can pinpoint when you started wanting that?”

That takes some more thought.

“Uh. Well, you know that I — I’ve loved Dean since we were children.”

She nods again.

“Since you were eleven. Romantically, since you were fourteen.”

“Yes.” They’ve talked about this. “And as kids, we played together almost every day. And at the end of each day, he would walk me home.”

Her lips twitch, and he raises a brow.

“Sorry. That’s pretty cute.”

“It gets better,” he tells her, solemn. “When we reached my house, Dean would, without fail, give me a hug.”

“That _is_ better,” she agrees gently, although there’s careful scrutiny in it. “So — you’ve always had a physically affectionate relationship?”

He shakes his head.

“Just until college. I — changed, and there were no more doors to walk me to, I suppose.”

“That makes sense.” She pauses. “And before that? Were the hugs the extent of it, or . . .?”

“No.” Cas thinks back, to days long ago, when things were simple. When Dean loved him, because they were best friends and family, and Cas mostly never spared a thought to worry whether that was enough.

When the physical was purely a matter of affection, rather than any measure of devotion.

“What else?”

“We’d often share a bed, and Dean liked to be touching me. Not a lot, or in any inappropriate way, but — hands or feet brushing. He’d have me sleep between him and the wall, because he said it was safer.”

“Dean has strong protective instincts,” she remarks.

“It’s one of the ways he shows affection,” Cas murmurs, and she nods, thoughtful.

“He has trouble expressing himself. Verbally, I mean.”

Cas looks down, rueful.

“As do I.”

“To be honest, the hugs are a bit of a surprise for me.”

In hindsight, Cas knows she’s right; and he realized, a long time ago, that he had taken them for granted.

“I don’t know why he did that,” he admits. “We never talked about it. Certainly, it wouldn’t have occurred to _me_ to try it.”

In fact, Cas was and is wary of initiating physical contact with Dean. As much as he loves Dean, appreciates and is fond of his complexity, he acknowledges that Dean is a minefield of unspoken boundaries that don’t even always make sense, and he’s accidentally crossed them enough times to feel uncomfortable risking it.

Up until last night, Cas always waited for Dean to come to him, to give him some idea of what he might want before Cas dared to consider the same.

“I see.” She makes a small note. “While I agree that there were gestures of affection in the act of sharing a bed, it doesn’t sound like it was all that _physical._ Not like hugging.”

Cas frowns. He has fond memories of sharing Dean’s bed. He’s rarely ever felt safer or more comforted than he did then.

“On the anniversary of his mother’s death, I’d hold him.”

“Oh? Which one of you initiated that?”

“Dean.” The first time, Cas was confused, anxious over Dean’s strange mood and unable to fall asleep to his restless shifting. And then he realized Dean was shifting closer and closer, movements interspersed with sniffles, and he reached out a hand to touch Dean’s shoulder, to ask what was wrong — and then Dean burrowed right into his chest.

“That’s a big sign of trust.”

Cas catches himself squaring his shoulders too late.

“Yes.” He deflates a little, remembering the year it stopped. “But that ended in college, too.”

She hums, scribbles down another note.

“Can you think of anything else? Were those the only times you embraced?”

He considers this.

“It felt like he had a hand on my shoulder, or an arm around it, more often than not. And, um, in high school, he’d fix my tie every day. When we sat on the sofa, he’d often put his feet in my lap. But we only — embraced — when he walked me home, or when one of us was deeply distressed.”

“Ah.”

“Dean is a physical person,” he offers, unsure what else to say. “Even if he shies away from obviously affectionate gestures.”

“Like hand-holding,” she comments, and Cas looks away.

“Like hand-holding.”

“So — that all stopped in college?”

“Well, I stopped wearing ties,” he jokes weakly, but she simply nods.

“And now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you indicated that Dean doesn’t do PDA. What about the rest of the time?”

“Oh.” Cas thinks about it.

He doesn’t like the answer he comes up with.

“Oh,” he says again, gripping the edge of the cushion. “I don’t — I’m not sure. I — as you know, he lets me cuddle with him at night.”

She narrows her eyes.

“’Lets you,’” she repeats, pen moving. “Do you feel that, even though you’re in a relationship, that contact is one-sided?”

Cas flushes, the question a little too close to home.

“I — I don’t know. I’m asleep.”

“I see. Do you cuddle when you’re awake?”

“Um. Perhaps? We — when we watch TV, we make out sometimes.”

“What about when you don’t?”

“What?”

“If you don’t make out. Imagine you’re watching TV together; how do you sit?”

Cas blinks, eyes darting around the room.

“Uh — I guess — we just — sit? Close together,” he adds hastily. “Our shoulders touch?”

“Alright.” She makes a quick note. “And — hugging? Do you ever hug?”

Cas looks back at her, lost.

“Yes? Yes, we do. When Dean wants to have sex—”

She holds up a hand.

“Wait. That’s not what I’m asking. Do you embrace without it leading to sexual contact?”

Cas just stares helplessly, clutching the edge of her sofa.

“I — probably?” he tries, though in all of the many instances he can recall where Dean came up to him, wrapped his arms around him, it _always_ led to sexual contact of _some_ kind.

But that doesn’t necessarily _mean_ anything. They’ve already established that Dean is generally uncomfortable and the fact that he ever hugged Cas so much in the first place was strange.

And besides, it was a new relationship. There’s hardly anything weird about all the touching they did devolving into sex.

“Castiel,” Pamela says kindly, drawing him away from his thoughts. “There are no wrong answers here. Every relationship is unique. The important thing is that it’s satisfying to both parties.”

“Right,” he agrees numbly. “Then — then why are you asking?”

She raises her brows.

“Because you expressed a wish for him to be more affectionate.”

Oh. He did do that, didn’t he?

Being honest in therapy is a _terrible_ idea.

“I may have exaggerated.”

“You didn’t sound like you were exaggerating. It’s okay to feel the way you feel.”

 _No, it isn’t,_ he wants to say, but then she’ll argue with him, and then maybe he’ll tell her the truth, and once he does _that,_ then he’ll have to actually deal with it.

“Okay.”

“But sometimes it’s nice to know why you feel that way. It can make you feel better, and it can help you figure out how to ask for what you need.”

Which — Cas is grateful for Pamela’s help, he truly is, but if he thought he was uncomfortable asking Dean for what he needed _before,_ then the way things stand now . . .

“Well, then,” he hedges. “Why do you think I’m so needy?”

She purses her lips.

“You feel like wanting more affection makes you ‘needy?’”

“Doesn’t it?” He opens his palms. “The man I’ve loved since I was a child finally returned my feelings. We’re together. Isn’t it selfish to ask for more?”

_I think — maybe we should try an open relationship._

Cas _has_ to believe he’s just being selfish.

“No?” Pamela seems surprised. “You have a strong literary background, Castiel. Surely you’ve encountered the debate over how much love can _actually_ conquer.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he mumbles, and she narrows her eyes.

“I think you do. And I think you know, also, that the answer is always ‘not as much as we’d like.’”

He stays silent, but Pamela seems content to wait.

“Fine. Even if I’m not needy,” he concedes, though he _is._ He knows he is. “You just said the important thing is that it’s satisfying to both parties.”

“And despite your wish for more, you feel like it is?”

Cas nods, thinking of the way Dean held him close last night, achingly sweet and unexpectedly giving, though Cas was so hard up for contact he wouldn’t have said a word if all Dean had done was _take._

“Dean gives me what he can, and I’m satisfied with that,” he tells her quietly, and maybe right now, he’s still adjusting, but he knows that this is going to be enough, the same way it's always been, regardless of what they were. “At the end of the day, I just — I just want to be together. Whatever that means.”

Pamela studies him, eyes soft, though she looks troubled.

“’Whatever that means?’”

Cas shrugs, picking at the sideseam of his jeans.

“Dean's and my relationship has changed a lot, over the years. Even if it changes again, it doesn’t matter. It’s all good and well to want, but as long as Dean has space for me in his life, that’s really all I need.”

“I see. That’s very devoted.”

“Whatever you want to call it.”

She nods, then caps her pen, and Cas is less relieved than he thought he’d be that the session is over. If anything, his closing words seem fairly definitive, yet he still feels as though he’s been interrupted right in the middle of something.

To his surprise, Pamela seems to agree.

“Well. You’ve been very open today, Castiel, and I think we’ve hit upon some important things, things that strongly influence you and inform your relationship with Dean. There’s a lot more I’d like to talk about, with regards to that, so hopefully we can get started on it next time.” She smiles. “Of course, feel free to think about it in the meantime. As always, I’m just a guide. The progress you make is all you, and it’s not unusual for it to continue happening outside the office.”

“Perhaps.”

They stand, and Pamela walks him to the door.

“And Castiel?” she adds, eyes serious, though there’s warmth there, too. “This is one of those things I think it would be helpful to talk more about, to explore your feelings on — but I’d like to go ahead and say that whether it’s a need or a want, it’s okay to just ask for it.”

Cas thinks about last night, again, about breaking down and asking, about receiving in spades.

“Sometimes,” he allows.

But he also knows how precarious it all is, how even now, he’s not sure what to expect from Dean when he gets home, if it will turn out last night was just a pity-fuck from his deeply empathetic best friend and they’ll go back to not touching for however long it takes for Cas to crack again; or worse, if Dean will have thought it over, too, seen it and Cas for what they are and decided neither are anything he wants at all.

So yes, _sometimes_ it’s okay to ask.

But not always.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean greets him, pausing by the sofa to squeeze Cas’s shoulder. It could be Cas’s imagination, but there’s something soft in his voice, and his hand lingers for a moment for he withdraws it.

Cas fights the urge to tilt his head, turn his face up for a kiss he doubts will come.

He’s still anxious over last night.

“Hello, Dean. How was work?”

Dean sighs, leaning a hip against the sofa.

“Not too bad, I guess. Just . . . long.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Nah, it’s a good thing.”

“Even good things can leave you drained,” Cas points out, and Dean pauses.

Then he sighs.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right. Anyway — I’m gonna grab a shower and then I’ll make dinner. You good?”

Unsure what he’s asking, exactly, Cas finally turns around, squinting up at him.

“I think so,” he says slowly, and Dean hesitates.

“Okay.” He reaches out, fingers just brushing the hair at the nape of Cas’s neck. “You need a haircut, though.”

Cas tries and fails not to lean back a little, and he’s relieved when Dean doesn’t pull his hand a way, just toys with the strands for a moment.

“Alright. I don’t remember when I got it cut last.”

Dean hums, thumb tracing the hairline.

“December. Before we went down to Bobby and Ellen’s for Christmas.”

“Ah.” Cas’s mouth is a little dry, and if Dean doesn’t stop that, Cas is going to have no choice but to scramble over the sofa back and just _risk_ it for the second night in a row.

Dean’s hand falls to his side.

“I’ll take you this weekend.”

Cas swallows, tries to ignore the weird singing in his blood.

“That — sounds good. Thank you.”

“Sure. See you in a few.”

Dean drifts off to the bathroom, and Cas exhales slowly, resisting the urge to trail after him and ask if Dean will at least just let him wash his hair for him or something.

God, he’s pathetic.

Dean finishes his shower and cooks dinner as promised, and conversation seems a little easier tonight. Dean jokes about Benny’s ‘pack-a-day habit with the juiceboxes’ and asks about Cas’s current project like he’s genuinely interested, and the silences in between are the most comfortable they’ve been since Cas got home.

They wash up, side by side at the kitchen sink while Zeppelin plays, and Dean sings along.

It’s all so _nice_ , enough that Cas is feeling inordinately hopeful by the time Dean’s ringtone for Charlie interrupts, and Cas retreats to his work on the sofa while he waits for Dean to come turn on the TV.

But, as it turns out, Dean won’t be taking him for a haircut this weekend, after all.

“. . . don’t know, Charlie, maybe I should pass on this one.”

He fights the urge to turn around; seeing Dean won’t make him hear better.

He would like to know what he’s passing on, though.

“Right. Right, but I know you have backup handmaidens,” Dean says, which means this must be about Moondoor.

Which has an upcoming campaign — the one Charlie talked about at coffee.

“Oh, come on, Chuckles, that’s low.”

Which _also_ means Dean will be away the entire weekend, and the unfortunately selfish part of Cas kind of hopes Dean will follow his impulse to just stay home.

But that _is_ selfish, and the LARPing is both something that Dean enjoys and something that’s very healthy for him to do — especially given all his recent work stress.

“Alright, alright. Wouldn’t want Katya’s goddamn _cats_ to be sad. I’ll go.”

There’s an audible ‘yay’ from the other end of the line, but Cas is too busy feeling like he’s been dunked in the Arctic to admire Charlie’s volume.

 _Katya._ Dean’s unlikely friend, a product of an unfulfilled hookup on his and Cas’s terrible date last fall. Peripherally, Cas is aware that she’s somehow managed to stick around — that Dean enjoys her actual company — and the vindictive, petty bitch in him kind of hates it.

Nonetheless, he’d forgotten to be _worried_ about it.

When Dean gets off the phone a few minutes later, Cas still feels like he’s choking on frigid water.

“Should I expect you to be gone this weekend?” he can’t stop himself from asking.

Dean sighs.

“Yeah. Honestly, I don’t really feel up to it, but Charlie says the gang misses us, and even though you don’t ever go, I kinda feel like I have to.”

“But if you don’t want to . . .” Cas starts, because he’s a genuinely terrible person, and Dean shrugs.

“Yeah, but she pointed out that it’s Katya’s first campaign. They’ve gotten to be pretty good friends, too, but Katya won’t know anyone else and Charlie’ll be really busy with queen bullshit, so they wanted me to go for moral support.”

“Oh.” Cas isn’t sure what else to say.

They’re quiet for a moment.

“You’re invited to Sunday Feast, by the way.”

“Maybe,” he says, though if Cas knows Charlie, this invitation may be mandatory.

He might ignore it, anyway.

“You could come,” Dean says suddenly. “For the whole weekend, I mean.”

More than ever, Cas is tempted. He’s tempted to go and he’s tempted to believe that if he does, Dean won’t wander off for drunk festivities full of beautiful LARPers, or worse, isolated moonlit strolls to ‘decompress’ with his pretty fangirl friend Katya.

But Cas isn’t brave enough to risk it and then find out his presence doesn’t actually make a difference.

He shakes his head.

“I don’t even have a costume. Besides,” he adds, struggling to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “You already have one newbie to babysit. I don’t want to ruin it.”

Dean gives him an inscrutable look.

“You won’t,” he says quietly, and Cas just — doesn’t know.

“Still. I’m sure I can find some other way to entertain myself. Thank you.”

Dean actually flinches.

“Right. Yeah, of course.” He clears his throat. “Well, uh. I think I’ll get a head start on packing, since I know I’m not gonna want to after work on Friday.”

That said, Dean disappears into the bedroom.

Friday is still two days away, and even once it’s here, there’s nothing Cas can do about any of it.

It doesn’t stop him from worrying.

Going was a mistake.

Dean loves Charlie, like family, but there’s an immature part of him that feels like it’s her goddamn fault that right now, Dean’s boyfriend has the entire weekend free to gussy up and spend nearly three days out and about debauching other people.

Dean’s also becoming very fond of Katya, likes to think they’re fast on their way to being great friends despite the weird, messed up way they met, but even his budding affection for her and his usual enthusiasm for introducing new people to the game are not enough to stop him from kind of hating every second he has to spend there.

He tries to put on a brave face, because he knows that nobody’s at fault here except himself. He tries, and he mostly succeeds in not being a dick to them, in being patient and good-humored while they show Katya the ropes, but not every citizen of Moondoor has the benefit of being someone Dean knows and likes, and . . .

Well, needless to say, he probably shouldn’t have joined the mock battle.

“What the _hell_ was that, Dean?”

“Dude was bein’ a bitch.”

“Dude was being a standard-issue enemy knight, you butt! And speaking of butts, what the hell crawled up yours?”

“Nothing—”

“Like, seriously! If Katya hadn’t pulled you off of him—”

Dean’s still not sure how she managed that.

“We probably would have had to call the police! Do you want to know how many times I’ve had the police show up to one of these things?”

Dean sighs.

“Never.”

“Ex _actly._ And I’d like to keep it that way, thank you!”

“I’m just sayin’, he touched me first.”

Charlie gives him a look.

“He slipped in the mud.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know that.”

“ _Dean._ ”

“Fine. I’ll sit tomorrow’s out.”

She throws up her hands.

“Okay, but you see how that’s not actually a solution? I’m not kidding. What is _wrong_ with you? You’ve been just — _off,_ all day.”

“Work stress,” he mumbles. “It’s gettin’ to me. I miss working at Bobby’s. All I had to do was clock in and clock out.”

“I thought you hired someone new?”

Dean blinks.

“No?”

She frowns.

“Sam said Cas said you were training the new guy.”

Dean colors. Jesus, if Dad could see him now.

“Oh, right. Yeah, we were doin’ a trial thing, but he backed out after a few days. Man, that was weeks ago. I forgot all about it.”

Charlie screws up her face like some kind of foul animal excrement has just been waved beneath it, and oh, right, that would be the bullshit Dean just spewed.

“Okay. Okay, I have a knighting ceremony to attend. You, handmaiden, are on timeout for now. I will send Katya on the Kitten Quest with the other first-timers, and then you are going to meet me at the tavern at eight-thirty. Got it?”

He sighs.

“Yeah, okay. Got it.”

In his defense, Charlie should have anticipated that he’d get to the tavern _before_ eight-thirty. Moondoor had a jail, sure, but not an official _timeout_ (in theory, everybody here was too old for that), and with nothing else to do . . .

Charlie gets there at about five after, just in time to see the extremely sexy pixie with the unnatural white-blonde hair who’s been flirting with Dean for the last half hour drape herself halfway across his back while she shows him pictures on her phone.

They’re pretty cool, remarkably artistic shots from various conventions she’s been to (and she’s been to a lot). Still, Dean gives them a solid B as far as flirting game. Katya’s pictures of her cats in homemade cosplay were way better.

Although, more than anything right now, he’d like a string of unfathomable emojis from Cas. He knows the only pictures Cas has on his phone are the ones he takes of various plants and insects and shit when he’s out running, but Dean’s not gonna hold his breath for Cas to show them to him.

Certainly not as a flirting tactic. Cas doesn’t really bother flirting with Dean.

Anyway, if he didn’t know any better, he’d say Charlie lets out a string of curses once she sees him.

She approaches with quick strides, wide smile stiff on her face.

“There you are, Dean,” she grits out, and the pixie glances over, double-takes, and then slips out of the booth to kneel.

“My queen,” she says, about three octaves lower than she’s been speaking for the last half hour.

It’s pretty impressive, honestly.

“Oh, no need for formality in the Tavern,” Charlie insists, waving a hand. “But I’m afraid my handmaiden has been waiting for me to discuss important kingdom matters.”

She gives the pixie — whose name Dean is ashamed to realize he doesn’t remember — a kind, but pointed look.

“Oh.” She looks disappointed — which is kinda nice, if he’s being honest — but smiles. “My apologies, my queen. Perhaps I will see you _both_ at tomorrow’s Sunrise ceremony.”

She gives them each a meaningful smile, winks, and glides away to another table.

Dean sighs.

“Whaddya say, Chuckles? Threesome with the hot pixie at the asscrack of dawn?”

Bizarrely, Charlie doesn’t laugh.

“ _Dude,_ ” she hisses, slipping into the booth beside him, brow furrowed.

“It’s a joke, Charlie. If she wants to sleep with both of us, we’re sure as hell doing it separately.” He frowns, considering. “And I’m goin’ first, ‘cause I saw her first. I mean, if she’s cool with that.”

Charlie’s eyes bulge.

“ _Dude,_ ” she repeats, and then pinches him. “How many have you _had_?”

“Uh.” The barmaids and . . . shit, what do you call a dude barmaid? A barfellow? Yeah, that sounds good — keep clearing them away. “A few.”

She glares.

“You told her you had a boyfriend, right?”

No. Maybe he should have, but even if _that’s_ not a lie, the implication that his boyfriend even fucking cares what he does sure is.

“Jeez, Charlie, she was just bein’ friendly. Aren’t you always harpin’ about that Moondoor spirit of camaraderie?”

Charlie stares.

“Yeah, no, Dean — having fun is great, I was hoping you would, but that pixie was _not_ being fun and friendly, she was trying to take you back to her freaking tent!”

“So?” he says, because he’s a dumbass, and Charlie recoils.

“ _Dude_ ,” she sputters, which seems to be the theme of tonight. “ _Cas._ Your boyfriend? Hello?”

Dean sniffs, tugging his glass closer, though it’s empty, now.

“What about ‘im? He doesn’t care.”

Charlie blanches.

“What do you _mean,_ he doesn’t care? I swear to God, Dean, if you did rock that girl’s tent, no one would ever find your body.”

And of course, Dean laughs at that, long and hard, because it’s fucking hilarious. The only interest Cas would have in Dean’s rocking of her tent might be if he were invited. Dean’s pretty sure he likes that kind of thing.

Of course, Cas likes almost anything, doesn’t he?

“Jesus _Christ._ What the hell is going on?” Charlie demands, and Dean shrugs.

“Nothin’s going on, Charlie. Jus’ relax an’ have a drink, alright?”

“Um, wow, okay. Yeah, meeting canceled Dean. Tonight, I’m quarantining you and calling Cas, and tomorrow, you have some explaining to do. Hungover or not,” she adds darkly.

Dean sobers a little at that.

“Look, lemme just go back to my tent, okay? You don’t gotta call Cas.” Cas is probably busy finding some sexy little pixie of his own. Maybe a whole squad of ‘em.

Or maybe he’s already got some on speed-dial, and they’re real excited to hear from him after months of silence.

“You bet your dumb Winchester ass I do,” she says, and she’s already dialing.

He sighs, tipping his head back against the booth. Oh, well. If Cas is sandwiched between a basketball team’s worth of glitter-sweating pixie lads and ladies, he’s probably not gonna pick up his phone.

Dean frowns. There’s somethin’ off about that metaphor, he’s pretty sure.

With a scowl, Charlie slides out of the booth and shakes a finger in his face.

“ _Stay_ ,” she commands, and then heads out to talk to Cas.

And since Charlie _is_ the queen, Dean stays, even when the pixie chick from earlier catches his eye and raises a questioning brow. He just shakes his head apologetically, and she gives him an understanding nod in return.

Honestly, even if Cas is okay with it, Dean’s not, no matter how genuinely cool she seemed. There’s a lot of cool people out there, but at the end of the day, only one of them is _Cas._

And maybe Dean’ll get there eventually, but he’s certainly not there yet.

When Charlie comes back, she looks more worried than pissed, and she’s surprisingly gentle as she leads Dean to his tent and supervises him getting into the airbed.

“Now stay put until your boyfriend gets here, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles, then sighs. “Thanks, Charlie. Sorry I fucked up your night.”

“Last thing I’m worried about, Dean,” she mutters cryptically, and then ruffles his hair. “See you in the morning. Be good for Cas.”

Dean swallows against a sudden, stupid lump in his throat, and for a moment, he can’t answer.

“’S’what I’m trying to do,” he finally manages to say.

But Charlie is already gone.

Cas isn’t sure what to expect when he uses Charlie’s GPS ping to navigate to Dean’s tent, but based on what she said, the odds are good he’s passed out by now.

Not _that_ good, apparently; Dean’s eyes are drooping, but open when Cas arrives.

“Hey there, Cas,” he says softly, voice a little rough from his apparent binge, and Cas tries not to frown at him.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Wasn’t sure if you’d come.”

Cas isn’t sure how to interpret that, so he doesn’t try.

“You were causing trouble for Charlie.”

 _And I was worried,_ he doesn’t say. Dean might ask _why,_ and while Cas was worried about a lot of things, there’s a few he doesn’t dare confess to.

“Oh, I see,” Dean drawls. “Chuckles tattled.”

“Yes, well, you got drunk, caused an incident in the melee battle, and committed shenanigans in the tavern she opted not to elaborate on. I think she was entitled.” Not that she needed to elaborate. Dean may not be his father, but his drunken self seems to have inherited the man’s knack for causing trouble.

Dean sighs.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Excuse me?” Cas prompts, startled and preemptively offended, but Dean simply shakes his head.

“You’re givin’ me that — that sad coinpurse face.”

“ _What_?”

“You know, it’s all — pinched and unhappy. You’re thinkin’ about my dad, right?” he continues, and shakes his head again. “Always got that look when he came around. Swear to God, he was like the boogeyman to you. Never understood it.”

Cas finds that hard to believe, but then, this is Dean.

“Anyway,” he continues, unperturbed, “For the last time, Cas, I ain’t my dad. I can fuck up plenty when I’m sober.”

Trust Dean to completely miss the point.

Cas grits his teeth.

“That is a less compelling argument than you seem to think.”

“Ha,” Dean huffs, then falls silent again.

“What happened today?”

Dean shrugs.

“Like you said, man. I got carried away. I do that, sometimes — come on, you know.”

 _Not in a while,_ Cas doesn’t say.

“And at the tavern?”

At that, Dean has the nerve to _roll his eyes._

“Charlie was all freaked out thinkin’ I was gonna go rock a tent with this sexy little pixie that was all over me,” he explains dryly, and it’s all Cas can do not to just walk out, because he really doesn’t want to hear this.

He stays, though. These are the new rules, and Dean has every right — so he stays.

“Well. I’m sorry she called me, then.”

If anything, Dean’s expression sours.

“Yeah, well,” he mumbles. “’S’much as I drank, it wasn’t gonna happen, anyway. Dunno why she bothered.”

It’s a testament to just how pathetic Cas is that, even with the clear implication being that Dean would have gone with the pixie if not for a powerful combination of Charlie and whiskey dick, he’s incredibly _relieved._

And then it finally hits him, what Charlie’s interference means.

Dean hasn’t told Charlie; which means he probably hasn’t told anyone, and Cas — Cas cannot, for the life of him, understand why.

Is Dean _ashamed,_ despite being the one to ask for this? Does he think his friends will judge him?

Perhaps they will.

Cas thinks about it, confused and uncertain whether this is meant to preclude him from telling them, as well, and eventually decides that this is one instance where he’s perfectly justified in asking.

But he’s too late; by then, Dean is already fast asleep.

“Uh, hello. Castiel, right?”

Cas blinks, turning around and trying not to glare at whoever it is that has interrupted his breakfast. In addition to it being scarcely past eight o’ clock, Cas woke to an empty tent, was denied admittance into Moondoor’s whatever-you-call-a-vaguely-medieval-mess-hall on the grounds that he wasn’t in costume, and then had to circle back and don Dean’s spare tunic-and-legging set before he could get someone to serve him some fucking coffee.

Needless to say, he’s in a foul mood.

“Yes?” The woman looks incredibly familiar, all soft brown curls and wide hazel eyes, tall but slight all the same.

She sticks out a hand, smile friendly but hesitant.

“I’m Katya. We met—”

“I remember you,” he cuts her off, forcing himself to shake her hand before returning to his meal. “May I help you?”

There’s a pause, and then she exhales with a slight _whuff._

“Maybe,” she mumbles, and after another moment, plops into the seat beside him, steepling her fingers. “Sooo, this is, uh, nice. I’ve heard a lot about you from Dean.”

Dear God, why is this _happening_?

“That’s nice.” Katya hunches a little at that, elbows drawing closer together, and Cas reluctantly adds, “I’ve heard about you, as well.”

“That’s unfortunate. I was hoping you’d say you heard about my cats, and then I could show you some pictures.” She purses her lips, makes a strange fizzy noise with her mouth as Cas shoves a spoonful of eggs in his mouth and tells himself she’s unbecomingly strange. “I still can?”

He sighs.

“I _have_ heard about your cats, and seen pictures, but thank you.”

“Oh.” She separates her fingers, resting her forearms on the table. “Did you see the one where Mr. Potato Head is dressed up like Mr. Potato Head?”

Cas stills.

“You named your cat Mr. Potato Head?”

“Hey,” she protests, toying with the end of her sleeve. “If it’s good enough for a potato, it’s good enough for a cat.”

“I don’t follow.”

“They both have eyes.”

“Not the same ki—”

“And they’re both hairy.”

“Again, not the sa—”

“And they both comfort you when you’re having a bad day. Unless you’re like, weird, and you’re not a potato person.” She pauses. “That is, a person who likes potatoes, not a person who has potato qualities. Like Mr. Potato Head. Oh, hey, logic circle.”

Katya is insane. That’s good to know.

“So, anyway, I think your boyfriend is sad,” she says abruptly, and Cas whips his head around.

“Excuse me?”

She winces.

“There was a time, at one point, in the _I_ -think-very-distant past, that I almost hooked up with him in a bar bathroom.”

“I recall,” he says frostily.

“And one of the reasons for that was because I’d just moved, and while Mr. Potato Head and Sandy are the best cats a girl could ask for, they’re not _exactly_ a replacement for things like friends and family and good self-esteem.”

Cas can’t help himself.

“Your other cat is just named _Sandy_?”

“She looks like a beach.”

“A beach is not hairy _nor_ does it have eyes.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“I’m not trying to say it does?”

“But you—”

“So I put on my fangirl gear and I go to a bar and there’s this dude and he’s into my show and he like, _gets it._ Also I drank a lot. And also I don’t always have spectacular self-esteem, especially when I’m all by myself in a new city and none of my old friends are calling me. So, it _appeared_ to be a no-brainer.”

“Obviously.”

“But then _you_ showed up, and just — wow! It was like an episode of Dr. Sexy!”

Cas opens his mouth, then shuts it.

“I sense that you are prone to hyperbole,” he says tiredly, “So I will forgive you for that.”

She shakes her head, reaching for the little cluster of condiments.

“Oh, no, I’m not exaggerating. It’s actually pretty fascinating, because while the temptation is to focus on things like dialogue and plot,” she starts, arranging the shakers and bottles, “There’s a lot going on with direction and visuals, and it follows a significant pattern. You see, if you’re this bottle of mustard, and Dean and I are the ketchup and salt—”

“Why wouldn’t you leave the ketchup and mustard together?” Cas interrupts, confused by her arrangement.

She looks exasperated.

“Because they’re a match.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” he argues. “You and Dean should be the ketchup and mustard, or Gary and I should be.”

She just frowns at him.

“Except that’s like, not at all how it is? Wow, Dean said you didn’t enjoy the show as much, and I think I can see why. Where was I? Ah, yes. So, Dean’s the ketchup, I’m the salt, your Captain America guy is the pepper flakes, and—”

“Why not just use the pepper shaker for Gary?”

Katya grits her teeth.

“Because Captain America and I are not a match, _unfortunately._ The point _is,_ Castiel, that Dr. Piccolo _always_ enters the scene of conflict from Stage Right and—”

She freezes.

“Oh, _shit._ No, wait, sorry,” she says hastily, shoving the condiments back in order. “That is not the point. The point is that I was sad, and I thought a hookup would make me feel better, and I made a friend instead. A friend who kind of kickstarted my feeling like I could actually survive out here.”

Cas’s grip on his fork tightens. He’s been at least eighty-percent lost since Katya sat down and started talking, but he’s finally hit upon an explanation of where she’s going with this, and he doesn’t care for it at all.

Even if it’s not a surprise.

“If you think you can cheer Dean up by sleeping with him, you’ll have to talk to him. I have no influence over his choice in partners.”

Katya stares at him like he’s grown three heads, and oh, right, Dean hasn’t told anyone.

“What? I don’t — what?”

“ _My_ point is,” he continues tiredly, “If you’re that keen on him, you probably have a chance. Take it and leave me alone.”

But Katya stays right where she is, gaping, and it annoys Cas enough that when a terribly unkind thought occurs to him, he acts on it.

“What, he didn’t tell you?” he asks, feigning surprise, although he knows he’s probably misrepresenting the situation here. “Well, I suppose he must not be that interested, then.”

With that, Cas grabs his cup of coffee and walks, leaving the rest of his breakfast to bask in Katya’s speechlessness.

It doesn’t really make him feel better.

At the end of the day, Cas has always been afraid of girls like Katya.

They’re pretty and, by some definitions, traditionally feminine, but more importantly, they’re people Dean can connect with. Girls like Katya are clever and share his interests, find him charming and funny and can keep him engaged and laughing in return. They’re sweet, too, pose little threat to Dean emotionally, and they’re people Dean can not only enjoy, but he can be _comfortable_ with.

They are, in fact, the kind of person Cas always figured Dean would end up with. Any one of them could turn out to be just that little bit different from all the others like her, that little bit _more,_ and Dean would decide, “Yeah, alright. This is it.”

Charlie came out well before Cas started thinking in terms of attempted forevers, though there was a brief period of bitterness when she and Dean so quickly became good friends; Valencia, of course, had only to lay eyes on Sam before she apparently (and very stealthily) determined never to look elsewhere, and her excellent rapport with Dean was merely additional harmony in Cas’s life; Cassie and Lisa weren’t _quite_ the same type, but they were certainly something special, and Cas must admit to being relieved when they ultimately chose someone else.

But Katya — there was a spark, with Katya, a girl who is lonely and wanting, and evidently likes Dean so well she’s been able to turn a failed hookup into an actual friendship. And it’s not insignificant that Dean was willing to forfeit victory to (figuratively speaking) take her home last fall.

Cas is worried she is exactly the kind of girl Dean could fall in love with.

And he is also worried that, despite what appears to be a very equal attraction to both genders, and an unexpected lack of hangups about that fact, there is some part of Dean that without sufficient motivation, would rather chase that elusive apple pie life with a woman. After all, in the strange, surreal script Dean grew up expecting to perform, that’s who was always cast in the other role, and Cas isn’t sure he’s ever quite escaped that.

He’s not sure if he can.

When Dean turned sixteen years old, his father came to town.

Freshly licensed and unavoidably pleased at being able to tell his father this, Dean informed John, who clapped his son on the back and said, “Well, son, let’s see. Why don’t you run down to the corner store and bring back some pie to celebrate?”

Dean complied — of course, because a) his father asked him and b) his father was mostly sober and wanted to eat _pie_ with him — which left Cas awkwardly sitting on Bobby's sofa while John openly studied him from the adjacent chair and Cas forced himself to meet his eyes. Not only did John look down on cowardice, Cas wasn’t afraid of him (mostly) and he wanted John to know it.

“Gonna grab a beer while we wait. Want one?”

“No, thank you,” Cas returned curtly, and John shrugged.

“Suit yourself.” He headed off to the kitchen and returned a moment later, resuming his shrewd appraisal of Cas while he sipped at the bottle.

And then he chuckled.

“Every damn time I come back here, y’look at me like I’m Darth Vader.”

 _You might as well be,_ Cas thought to himself, but prudently said nothing.

John narrowed his eyes, taking a long pull from his drink.

“Maybe I oughta take ‘im with me.”

Cas stiffened.

Dean was pretty happy there, Cas was sure, had given up expecting or really wanting John to come back and take him away — but Cas wasn’t stupid enough to think that if his dad commanded it, Dean would even consider saying no.

John laughed again.

“Ah, didn’t like that, did ya?” His lip curled. “Yeah. Yeah, I know your type. Don’t know why Bobby hasn’t sent you packin’.” His face darkened a little. “Always was too soft on Dean. And I guess my boy’s real fond of you, huh?”

Cas stayed quiet, fists clenched. Talking back to John Winchester never got anybody anywhere, and unlike Bobby, he didn’t have much to back it up.

“Well, don’t get your hopes up, boy,” he continued. “Dean’ll love anybody who pays him any mind. Always been his weakness. But it don’t make you special, and either way, he’s gonna grow up and move right on from you, alright? So don’t be gettin’ any pretty ideas.”

Even at sixteen, Cas found John utterly beneath contempt; he cared even less about what John had to say than he did about his own parents’ cold, empty words, so as much as that still managed to provoke a white-hot fury within him, he said nothing — not even to tell him about Dean’s heartfelt promise to _always_ take care of him.

It would just bring trouble down on Dean, anyway.

Still, it pissed him off, and he was immensely relieved when Dean strolled back in, pie in hand, though he spared an anxious glance between them.

Cas offered a slight nod, and Dean relaxed.

“We’re not waitin’ for dinner, are we?”

John let out a hearty laugh, draining the rest of his beer.

“Ellen ain’t home, I reckon’ you can misbehave a little, son.”

Dean beamed, eyes near sparkling, and not for the first time, Cas caught himself thinking how little John deserved it.

Ellen did scold them when she came home, but Cas suspected she was mostly just relieved John’s visit hadn’t yet resulted in any kind of disaster.

He headed out after dinner, to Dean’s disappointment and Cas’s guilty relief, but his parting gesture took _everyone_ by surprise.

As it turned out, John had gotten a new truck, a vehicle far better suited to whatever it was he did on any given day — and he was leaving the Impala for Dean.

Dean, of course, was _over the moon._

Cas quickly became concerned that not only would Dean not walk him home that night, he might spend the next month sleeping in the car, just to to be close to ‘her.’ John looked on with amused indulgence as Dean circled the vehicle, running reverent hands over the body, before finally sliding in front of the wheel with pure awe in his face.

Cas couldn’t stop himself from smiling, too, because in addition to the childlike glee, there was all the tenderness in Dean that no one, not even John, could snuff out.

Cas’s smile didn’t last; John caught his eye, holding his gaze as Dean smoothed a palm along the dash.

“Won’t be able to keep the girls away from you now, huh, son?”

Dean chuckled.

“No, sir, though I wouldn’t say I’m havin’ any problems there.”

John made an approving noise, but he was still looking at Cas, still looking smug and terrible and _oh,_ how Cas hated him in that moment.

Still — he knew he was full of it.

Now, though, stalking down the dirt path back to the tent, thoughts troubled by girls with Dr. Sexy obsessions and quirkily named cats . . .

Cas wonders if he should have listened.

When Dean wakes up, Cas has slid toward the center of the air mattress with him, but he’s curled up and facing away, and Dean feels queasy for more reasons than one.

Instead of settling in behind Cas, throwing an arm around his waist and going right back to sleep, Dean gingerly extricates himself and heads for the Moondoor ‘Spa’ to relieve himself and have a shower.

God damn _Charlie._ Cas must be so fucking pissed, having to drive all the way out here to manage Dean’s drunk, sorry ass; what was she _thinking_?

Dean stalks away from the bathrooms half an hour later with considerably more grace, but he doesn’t get far before an official member of the Queen’s guard apprehends him.

“Handmaiden. Your queen summons you.”

Dean bites back a tired sigh, waving the guard along.

“Very well. Lead the way.”

Charlie is dressed and penning some letter or creed or whatever at the escritoire in her tent, but she immediately drops her quill when she sees Dean, rising from the chair.

“Leave us,” she commands the guard, and with a bow, he ducks out of the tent.

And then she is no longer the Queen of Moondoor, but Charlie, Dean’s incredibly pissed almost-best-friend.

“Are you going to cooperate?” she asks suspiciously. “Or do I have to beat it out of you?”

He rolls his eyes.

“Not a lot to say. You _way_ overreacted, by the way. Cas is not happy he had to come down.”

“A) you were talking about _sleeping with some rand_ _o_ _m girl,_ and B) I wasn’t happy to have had to _call_ him! What even _was_ yesterday, Dean? And don’t give me some BS about work, this time,” she adds, scowling.

“Not BS,” he mumbles, but she just looks at him.

“You are a lying liar who lies,” she states plainly. “And you have Cas drama.”

“Yeah, alright. It’s fine, though.”

“It is _not_ fine! I don’t know how you two managed to screw this up again, but Dean — you were talking about sleeping with that girl like you might actually _do_ it. And then drunk you spouted some crap about Cas not _caring._ ”

Ugh. Did he, really?

“I was drunk, Charlie. And also, I was never gonna sleep with her. It was just harmless flirting. I do that, you know.”

Charlie throws up her hands.

“So you’re not going to talk about this.”

Dean shrugs, even though she looks incredibly upset and it’s successfully tugging at his heartstrings, because as much as she means well, he’s gotta hold firm on this. It’s nobody’s business but his and Cas’s.

“Nothin’ to say,” he insists, and that’s true. It is what it is, and no amount of talking, on anyone’s part, is going to change that.

She screws up her face, breathing audibly through her nose.

“ _Fine._ Be like that. But just — I’m _here,_ okay? I love you both and I want you both to be happier than you or any of us can stand, so — so come find me, if you need me. Okay?”

Dean musters a smile.

“I know.”

She scoffs.

“Yeah, okay. Dismissed.”

He hesitates.

“Actually — is it okay if I, uh, head back with Cas?”

If anything, Charlie looks pleased.

“ _Yes,_ dummy. And if I’d known something was up, I wouldn’t have made you come.” She folds her arms, looking down. “Sorry about that.”

Dean shakes his head.

“I should’ve pushed harder. Thanks, Charlie.”

She pauses a moment, then steps forward and gives him a hug.

“Take care, Dean. Give Cas my love.”

Dean pats her on the head, and once she lets go, he heads back to his tent.

He gets there just as Cas does, and when he catches sight of him, he can’t help a small smile.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” he drawls, and Cas whips around.

Dean’s stomach sinks a little. He looks upset.

“What?” he snaps, and Dean shrugs, slowing as he finishes approaching.

“Uh. You, in Moondoor costume. Those are mine, right? You didn’t jump some poor bastard on your way to the Great Hall?”

Cas glowers, taking a pointed sip of his coffee.

“No,” he says shortly. “But they wouldn’t let me in if I wasn’t in costume.”

“Yeah, sorry. I thought I’d be back before you woke up.”

Cas shrugs.

“It’s fine. I’m heading out once I’m done with this, anyway. Assuming what I parked in was an actual space and I didn’t get towed.”

And yeah, Dean winces, because coming down here must have been a fucking pain, and clearly Cas can’t wait to leave again.

“Right. Sorry, uh, that you had to come out here. I didn’t know she’d call you.”

Cas looks at him for a long moment, then lifts his shoulders.

“It’s fine,” he says, but Dean still has the distinct feeling it’s really not.

He clears his throat.

“Hey, uh — I don’t wanna . . . interrupt any plans you made, or anything, but d’you mind if I head back with you?”

Cas’s cup freezes halfway to his mouth.

“Uh.” He blinks. “You don’t want to stay?”

Dean shakes his head.

“Nah. Part of why I drank so much. I didn’t really wanna come in the first place, and I wasn’t in the mood for it. Guess I’m, uh, stressed, or whatever. Think I’d rather take you for that haircut, maybe order dinner.”

Cas looks at him, expressionless, then abruptly turns toward the tent.

“Alright,” he says quietly. “That’s fine.”

He goes in, and after a moment, Dean follows.

Dean packs his things up, Cas watching him silently all the while.

“Hey, uh — haircut place doesn’t open for a bit. Did you already eat?”

“No.”

“Wanna get breakfast? I think I owe you after last night,” he jokes, and Cas shoots him an unimpressed look.

But he nods.

“Sure.”

Breakfast is a quiet affair; the food’s good, and Cas doesn’t seem angry anymore, but he doesn’t say much, even when Dean finishes his own pancakes and starts stealing from Cas.

The rest of the day goes pretty much the same; Cas isn’t hostile or tense, just tired and subdued, and Dean has no idea if he’s the one causing it or not, although he probably is. He just doesn’t know what to do differently to fix it.

Dean caves when they finish dinner and Cas joins him on the sofa for _Dr. Sexy_ instead of heading for the table where his work is spread out. He’s not going to push his luck, but he still wants to read into that, to Cas sinking into the sofa beside him even though this isn’t his favorite show; wants to believe that even if Cas has been quiet today, he wants to be here with _Dean._

So Dean holds his breath and puts an arm around the sofa back, just touching Cas’s head, and hopes that even if Cas isn’t touchy-feely, doesn’t want Dean in his space all the time, maybe he’ll be okay with it, with Dean clinging onto him just this once.

Cas lifts his head slightly, but Dean stares intently at the screen, willing things to go his way, and finally, he feels Cas’s head tip back to rest against his arm.

He fights a sigh of relief, and when Cas sits up, readjusting a little, Dean decides to risk it and draws him against his side. Cas goes easily enough, but Dean can feel him staring, and he knows he’s probably wondering why the fuck Dean’s being a needy little bitch tonight.

Still, it’s worth it.

Neither of them say a word, and after a few episodes have passed, Cas stands, heading for the bathroom.

Dean doesn’t know how to feel about that. About any of it. Things were good, and then they weren’t, and then they were okay again, and now they’re not, and he doesn’t have the first clue what he can do about any of it.

He sits on the sofa, listening to the on-and-off of the tap; when the bathroom door creaks open, he waits a beat, then turns his head to watch Cas walk into the bedroom.

With a sigh, he plods over to the bathroom for his turn.

Cas is still awake when he gets out, but he’s not doing anything. He’s lying back against his pillow, just watching Dean as he wanders to his side of the bed and climbs in.

“Get the lamp?” he asks, and Cas is quiet for a beat. Dean can feel him staring.

And then he rolls over, places one warm palm right over Dean’s heart, and looks at him, searching his face.

“I’d like to leave it on,” he says softly.

And no, Dean doesn’t understand it, but he also knows not to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he answers by covering Cas’s hand with his own, then leaning up and kissing him.

Cas sighs, soft against his lips, and Dean snakes his other arm around Cas’s waist and hauls him on top of him. He lets himself enjoy it for a few minutes, the press of Cas’s mouth, sweet and earnest against his own, before he hooks a leg around Cas’s thigh and reaches for the drawer, blindly rummaging.

“Here,” he mumbles, licking at Cas’s lips while he shoves the box and bottle at him, and he ends up tracing Cas’s frown with his tongue.

“What am I supposed to do with these?” he asks suspiciously, and Dean shifts to his jaw, brushing his mouth against the stubble.

“Well, wear one of them, and please, for the love of God, use plenty of the other,” Dean murmurs.

“But-” Cas starts, and Dean kisses him a little harder, hitching his leg a little higher around Cas’s, pressing up against him.

“M’tired. I got work tomorrow.”

Cas hesitates.

“So am I. And I had to sleep in a tent last night.”

“I’m not the one who called you,” Dean points out, and Cas tenses, probably assuming Dean’s trying to start a fight, although only a crazy person would do that when they had Cas warm and willing on top of them. “But I’m glad you came, anyway.”

 _Melt_ is really the only word for what Cas does then, suddenly lax and pliant above him — except for the insistent way he smashes their mouths together.

Dean just grins into it, and Cas is conspicuously free of complaints once they get started.

And yeah, he’s sore and fucking _exhausted_ the next morning, but God _damn,_ was it worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> Unhealthy coping mechanisms: Dean's angry and frustrated about being at the Moondoor campaign, which he let Charlie talk him into, despite not wanting to leave Cas at home. He takes his anger out on a fellow LARPer with the flimsy excuse of thinking the other man was attacking him (he slipped in the mud), and has to be pulled off the guy. Charlie's incredibly upset and tells him to take a timeout and meet her in the Tavern to talk about it; he arrives early and starts drinking heavily.
> 
> Flirting between Dean/other: While drinking in the Tavern at the Moondoor campaign, another LARPer starts flirting with him, leaning against him to show him photos on her phone. Dean recognizes her attractiveness, but he's in a foul mood and he's bitter over Cas and even without Charlie's interference, he is not interested, thinking that it will be a while before he can stand to be intimate with someone other than Cas.
> 
> Implied homophobic John: In a flashback, John visits for Dean's 16th birthday. While Dean is off getting pie, he addresses Cas, saying, "I know your type," and indicating that he understands exactly how Cas feels and he disapproves.
> 
> Implied sexual content, Bottom Dean/Top Cas: Cas stops Dean from turning the light off before bed, indicating that he'd like to have sex. Dean's very much down for that, however, he's feeling tired and lazy and puts the burden of effort on Cas. Cas briefly protests, having had to sleep in a tent the night before, but quickly becomes enthusiastic as they proceed.


	5. is there a bone in my body that's not weak for you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: mild sexual content (not explicit or specific, but is most likely to be read as implied bottom!Cas), please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Chapter title taken from _Sink In_ \- Amy Shark.
> 
> This chapter is largely comprised of therapy sessions, I apologize in advance!

“You seem like you’re in a good mood.”

Cas meets Pamela’s eyes, cautious.

“Not particularly,” he says slowly, although that’s a lie, and he can tell by the look on her face that she knows it.

He wonders what gives him away.

“Really.”

He’s silent for a moment, then sighs.

“Dean came home early from his LARP event,” he mumbles, and Pamela smiles.

“Ah. You spent some time together.”

Cas shrugs.

“Yes. We, uh. We got breakfast. And he took me to get my haircut. And we just . . . walked around for a while, and then ordered in and watched TV, and then . . .”

She raises her brows.

“And then?”

To his dismay, he finds his cheeks turning red. He hasn’t blushed talking about sex since he was nineteen.

“Uh. Then — he — said he was glad,” he manages.

“Did he?” Pamela asks dryly, eyes twinkling. “Well, then I’m happy for you.”

Cas presses his lips together.

“You shouldn’t be. _I_ shouldn’t be.”

“You shouldn’t be happy you got to spend time with someone you love?”

“He loves his LARP events. I don’t — I’m still not sure why he didn’t stay, but regardless, I shouldn’t be happy that he missed out.”

“If I understand correctly, you’re not happy he missed out,” she says slowly. “You’re happy you gained something.”

“That’s even worse,” he grumbles, and her brows lift. “Spite is one thing — it’s been a staple in our relationship for a few years — but greed is just—”

He cuts off.

“Embarrassing,” he finishes, although the word feels wrong.

“Greed,” she repeats. “Hm. Well, first of all, I don’t believe you. You both _said_ a lot of spiteful things, but I’ve yet to hear an example of one of you deliberately hurting the other, not with any serious intent. Second . . . that’s an odd choice of word, Castiel.” She pauses. “We talked about your desire for more affection, last week, and you said similar things about it.”

“I wasn’t wrong,” he defends himself.

“Perhaps. Why do you feel that enjoying something you had no part in bringing about is _greedy_? Isn’t it just good fortune?”

“That’s just it,” he protests. “What if I _did_ have a part in it? You — you knew I was happy, today, without me saying anything — when I wasn’t _going_ to say anything.”

She nods.

“Which means that — there are things I can’t help saying. And what if — without realizing it, what if I’m asking for — for unreasonable things? And what if he feels pressured to give them? Or what if I go too far, and I want too much?”

Pamela hesitates, like Cas’s emotional issues are a giant turkey and she’s not sure where to start carving.

“What do you think will happen, in that case?”

“I won’t get anything at all.”

_Obviously._

“Hm.” She looks thoughtful. “That’s an interesting perspective.”

“People retaliate when you push them,” Cas insists, and then in a fit of pettiness, adds, “You have a psychology degree. You must know that.”

“Oh, that’s not what’s interesting,” she explains, and Cas crosses his arms, slouching into the sofa in a move he’s pretty sure he learned from Dean, long ago.

“Feel free to share with the class.”

Instead, Pamela just sits there, drawing circles with the cap of her pen, thinking.

“You consider that — and by 'that,' I mean everything you want from Dean — to be pushing.”

“Of course it is.”

“If we keep talking about it, do you think I could change your mind?”

“Respectfully, no. As insightful as you are — annoyingly so — I’ve known Dean since we were ten. I know where his boundaries are.”

“Boundaries,” she repeats, enunciating. “Alright, that’s fair. In that case, do you mind if we pick up where we left off last time? I think we stumbled on something important there, and I’d like to explore it. It might take some time, but I think it would help you.”

Cas fixes her with suspicious eyes, although he, too, felt their last talk went unfinished.

“That was . . . easy.”

She smiles.

“’If you push people, they retaliate’. I want to help you, not fight you.”

He sighs.

“Fine. As you will.”

“Thank you,” she says kindly. “So, last week, we discussed affection. Your wish for more of it, from Dean specifically, and you and Dean’s history with that.”

“Yes.”

“It seems to me that those expressions of affection were significant, to you and your early relationship. And that it had an impact, when they stopped.”

“Yes,” he says again, quiet.

“Alright. That being said . . . we don’t talk about your family much.”

Cas blinks, searching for a connection and finding none.

“I don’t think about them much,” he finally says, and it’s absolutely true. Cas left home and mostly didn’t look back.

“That makes sense. You told me, before, that with the exception of your sister, you weren’t close to them.”

“That’s correct.”

“Is it safe to assume your family wasn’t physically affectionate, either?”

He tilts his head.

“Uh. Yes. That’s . . . also correct.”

“I see. Well, at the risk of sounding like a cliché,” she begins, smile wry, “How often would you say your parents hugged you, or touched you, like to ruffle your hair or pat your shoulder?”

Cas is generally unbothered by talking about his parents — he trained himself into a tolerable sort of numbness on that front while he was still living with them, if only out of necessity — but he _is_ disturbed by the fact that she seems to think this relates to their previous conversation.

“My mother hugged me after school every day, until some time in elementary school,” he says shortly. “After that — I was scolded, if I asked for hugs. I stopped fairly quickly.”

He punctuates that with an arch look, but she remains unfazed, although he thinks her eyes tighten for a moment.

“So . . . no other touching?”

“No.”

“And your father?”

“Absent, generally. I don’t ever remember him hugging me.”

“Ah. What about siblings?”

“My brothers mostly ignored me. They were much older. My sister — sometimes. She’d pat my head. Very occasionally, she would hug me, but — well. We grew up in the same house. It was all foreign to her, too.”

“That makes sense.” Pamela doesn’t say she’s sorry — _therapy isn’t about me judging you, Castiel —_ but it’s in her eyes. “Then — Dean.”

“Dean?”

“It sounds like Dean provided that for you, in their stead.”

“I . . . suppose.”

“You disagree?”

“No,” he says honestly. “No, you’re right. But it makes me sound pathetic.”

“What makes you say that?”

He shrugs.

“It makes it sound like my family didn’t love me enough, so I prevailed upon my good friend to do it.”

“Do _you_ feel like that’s the case?”

Cas drums his fingers against his knee, restless. He generally just thinks of his preadolescence and onward as the beginning of the fall, a golden era of naive ardor during which he was unwittingly _spoiled_ by Dean.

“Maybe? I don’t know. Probably.”

“I see.” Pamela makes a discomfitingly lengthy note on her paper, then looks up at Cas, eyes intent. “We talked, once before, about your sister, and you told me you felt like your sister chose to go abroad because she was looking for a place to belong.”

“Yes. I think she found it.”

“That’s good.” Pamela nods. “That’s important. But what about you? Like you said, you came from the same household. Did you ever have a desire to go looking for that?”

And Cas is pretty sure Pamela knows the answer to this question, but he also knows she doesn’t like to put words in his mouth.

“No. I’d already found it.”

“What about after college?”

Cas shakes his head, rueful.

“Not even then. I knew where I belonged, even if I wasn’t allowed to be there.”

“I see. So — in light of all that, do you feel it’s accurate to say that, as an older child, Dean was your primary source of affection?”

“Yes,” he allows.

“And did you seek out a replacement in college?”

That’s much easier to answer.

“No.”

“Why not? It must have been hard.”

The hardest part was watching the distance between them widen like that, and knowing he had no choice but to maintain it. Not getting hugged enough had never been a problem for Cas; not getting hugged by Dean was an adjustment, to say the least.

“I didn’t want it from anyone else. It didn’t — it wasn’t the same.”

She nods slowly.

“So affection from Dean is different, despite a lack of it elsewhere.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you would have felt the same had you received more affection at home?”

“That’s impossible to know.”

“But what do you _think_?”

Cas presses his lips together.

“Yes. I think I could have come from the most loving and tender home in the world and still wanted it from Dean. Or I could have made friends with someone who wasn’t Dean, and I don’t think I would have wanted it from them at all. At least, not like that.”

“I see.”

He looks down.

“I know that’s wrong—”

“I didn’t say it was wrong,” Pamela interrupts, looking puzzled, and he’s sure he mirrors it.

“Isn’t it?”

She pauses.

“I don’t deny that you and Dean have a very complicated relationship, but wrong is a harsh word for something so subjective. Wrong is usually only applicable when it’s hurting someone. Do you feel like it’s hurting you or Dean?”

“ _That’s_ a loaded questions.”

“Take your time,” she says, serious, and he looks back at her for a moment, then sighs.

“I can be happy without him. I went years not getting a fraction of what I wanted from him, and I was fine. I even thought I could be happy with someone else.”

“That’s good.”

“ _But_ — never as happy as I am with him. As badly as he hurts me sometimes, he—” Cas swallows. “He makes me very happy, whatever he gives me.”

She scrutinizes him for a long moment, then glances down and makes another note.

She seems to have forgotten the other half of that question, the most important half, but it doesn’t matter.

Cas knows the answer.

And he knows that, as careful as he is to keep it to himself, to avoid crossing those lines — yes, it’s hurting Dean.

“Can I ask a personal question?”

He lifts a brow.

“Aren’t they all?”

“True. But you may take exception to this one.”

“We’ll see. Go ahead.”

“How often do you initiate sex?” she asks bluntly, and Cas blinks.

“Uh.”

“You’re not obligated to answer, of course.”

“I — it’s fine. Uh, well. I — we have sex fairly frequently.”

She tilts her head.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Does it matter?” Once again, he feels his cheeks growing hot, and _how_ has this become his life?

“It might. How frequently is frequently?”

“When we first started dating, every day.”

“And now?”

“Now? Um. Well. Last night, obviously.”

Pamela just gives him a look, and he sighs.

“As I said, Dean doesn’t have as much time.”

“Which means?”

Cas is silent for a long moment.

“Twice since I came back from my trip.”

“And it was every day, before that?”

“Yes,” he says, hating her a little.

“And . . . what percentage of the time were you the one to initiate things?”

He scowls.

“I didn’t have to,” he grits out. “Dean generally beat me to it.”

And that’s true, but it’s also true that Cas has never been good at asking for what he wants, has turned hiding what he wants from Dean into an art form, and since Dean seemed determined enough to never let the sun set on Cas’s unravished body, there didn’t seem to be any point.

“So . . . guesstimate. How often?”

The floor remains unaffected by his glower.

“The first time. After our talk in the parking lot.”

“And after that?”

“The last two times,” he mumbles.

There’s a weighty silence.

“And what prompted the change?”

A great deal of folly, is what.

“He didn’t — after I came back, I assumed — I was expecting — but he just—” Cas takes a deep breath. Pamela’s brow is creased. “So I thought — maybe it's up to me to . . .”

He trails off, despondent. He’s still not sure what happened, there, and he can’t even ask Pamela, because then she’ll know that Cas wasn’t enough, and even if she tries to make him feel better, this will turn into therapy for the fact that he _can’t_ have what he wants, after all.

That for all he knows, he’s fast on his way to losing _everything._

“Ah. And — do you feel like those encounters have been different?

“Yes.” It’s frustrating, not knowing if Dean is all there with him, if Cas could be anyone, if Dean just pities him too much to say no.

But mostly it’s comforting. That he says yes. That he touches Cas like he wants him, even if it’s a lie.

“Different how?”

He shrugs.

“Like there was a voyeuristic elephant right next to the bed, perhaps.”

“Really? Have you talked about it?”

Cas just looks at her.

“Okay, then. What do you think the elephant might be?”

The elephant was probably the fact that sometime in Cas’s absence, Dean determined their sex life was not enough, for reasons uncertain, and possibly/probably slept with someone else in doing so; but given that those reasons _are_ uncertain and Cas can’t bring himself to tell Pamela about their shiny new relationship status, he’s going to have to go with another, _I don’t know._

“I have no idea.”

“That’s a problem.”

“You think?”

She considers this for a long moment.

“You know, it’s interesting, that Dean initiated sex, daily, for a month, though you didn’t reciprocate.”

“ _Believe me,_ I recipro—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“You didn’t initiate.”

“Like I said. He generally beat me to it.”

“He may not see it that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“That all people are insecure, especially in a new relationship, and that Dean already seems to struggle with that.”

Cas stares back at her, devastated by the implication, which _has_ to be wrong. Cas was _embarrassingly_ responsive, if anything; whether he initiated it or not, there should have been no doubt as to his enthusiasm.

“So you think he thought I didn’t — that I wasn’t—” He cuts off, foundering, and she softens.

“I don’t know what he thought, Castiel. All I know is what you’ve told me, so these are all just possibilities for you to consider, because you probably know better than I do. But I think you should take some reassurance from the fact that he did that, at first. And I think you should follow his lead.”

“I told you, I have been—”

“I don’t mean sex. In a relationship, there’s typically more to sex than just the sex. I _mean_ finding a way to communicate what you want — and that you’re willing to try and give him what he wants, in return.”

“But shouldn’t it be — shouldn’t he be glad, now that I’m doing it?”

“Perhaps. Once we get it into our heads to be hurt about something, it’s not always easy to resolve. Dean may not know how to interpret your actions, any more than _you_ feel like you know what’s going on.” She gives him a meaningful look. “This is why communication is so important.”

“But—” He swallows. “What do I do, then?”

“Well. May I ask _why_ you didn’t initiate sex, before? The real reason, I mean,” she adds, pointed, and he ducks his head.

“Because I didn’t know the rules,” he says quietly.

Certainly, that’s been confirmed for him, now.

“Rules?” She looks puzzled, but in a strangely resigned sort of way. “What rules?”

“I — I didn’t know what was okay, or when it was okay. I didn’t want to make him — well, I thought it would be better to follow his lead while I figured it out.”

“I see. You were afraid of rejection?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“Did you ever fear rejection from other partners, when you sought out sex?”

“No. But it didn’t matter with any of them.”

“So you’re not an insecure person — but you feel insecure with Dean.”

“No. I mean, I do — feel insecure with Dean. But I’m not _not_ an ins– that is, I would say that sex was one of the few areas I was confident in, and since rejection didn’t matter before, it wasn’t one of my issues.”

“But if you’re confident in sex, why are you afraid of being rejected by someone you know loves you?”

 _But I_ don’t _know that._

That’s wrong, though; right now, Cas might be afraid that Dean was wrong, that he got caught up in the drama and misunderstood himself, that he confused the kind of love he actually felt for Cas — but before . . . Cas was sure.

Wasn’t he?

“I’m not sure,” he says slowly.

She nods.

“Even if your partner turns down sex, that doesn’t mean they’re rejecting _you._ ”

“I know.”

“Then why the fear?”

He just shrugs, and she nods again.

“Well. Sometimes, when we ask for one thing, what we’re really asking for is another.”

“Okay?” he prompts, at a loss.

“We’ve established that you’d like Dean to be more affectionate. We’ve also established that your interactions with Dean carry a . . . magnified significance to you.”

“That’s a nice way to say ‘unhealthy obsession,’” he counters dryly, but she ignores him.

“You described yourself, last time, as ‘needy.’ If that’s how you perceive yourself, you might have been worried that trying to initiate things would be an expression of that neediness.”

“Oh.” He swallows, because there’s disturbingly little in all of this to protest. “That . . . makes sense.”

“You know better than I do how you feel. If you don’t think that’s it, that’s okay.”

“No — no, you’re probably right. As the more invested party, I, uh, have always felt anxious about, um, making demands, of Dean. Of taking more than I give.”

Pamela’s brows are halfway up her forehead.

“The more invested party?” she echoes.

He shifts on the cushion, uncomfortable.

“Yes. The one who — well, obviously, I’m more — my feelings are . . .” he waves a hand. “You know.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

Cas squints at her.

“I’m saying,” he grits out. “That I — I care more. Than he does.”

Pamela nods calmly.

“Ah,” she utters. “And . . . what makes you think that?”

He sighs.

“Nearly twenty years of firsthand observation. It’s always been this way.”

“Right,” she says, face carefully neutral. “Give me an example?”

“Alright.” Cas thinks. Honestly, the best example, the times Cas feels it most keenly, this huge disparity between how much they each care, would be — “Dean, when he’s angry — he shuts me out. He can just — cut me off, and he’s fine. And, as I said, it’s always been this way.”

“I’m not trying to invalidate your feelings, here, but have you considered that that is more of a personality trait than an indicator of how much he cares?”

“Perhaps? Does it matter? At the end of the day, I’m not — I’m not special to him, the way he is to me. For Dean, me as a best friend, as family, and now, as a boyfriend — they’re all separate things, each of which can be influenced by the other things in his life. What's more, they’re a much greater reflection of who _he_ is than who I am. Whereas for me — it’s all the same, and it all comes down to _Dean._ And I want everything I can get from him, regardless of what else I have.”

Pamela inhales slowly.

“I see what you’re saying.”

“But?” Cas prompts. She holds his gaze, intent and unamused.

“But I think you, in turn, are evaluating this situation based on who you think Dean is, instead of from his actual perspective, the way you use yours. Feelings are not always the sum of parts. They’re complex and nuanced and you can’t always answer them like a math problem.”

“I’m not. I’ve known him most of my life, and I _know_ how he feels.”

“Then consider, for a moment, that that intimate knowledge may be blinding you? Because from what you’ve told me, from what I’ve _observed,_ I would have to say you have at least a few misconceptions about his feelings.”

“Then I’d have to say you’re wrong.”

“Really? So you think Dean lied when he said he loved you in college?”

Cas sits back, startled.

“What?”

“Do you think Dean made that up? The feelings he harbored then?”

“Well — well, no, he didn’t have any reason to lie -”

“And you maintain that you didn’t know about them?”

“Obviously not, or else I would have acted on my own!”

She smiles, far too smug for his tastes.

“So you _don’t_ always know how Dean feels.”

Cas gapes.

“That — that doesn’t count. I — yes, I was blind to the nature of his feelings, but — but not the intensity. Then and now, whether it’s friendship or family or romance, Dean is comfortable being without me. I — I _crave_ him, in unnecessary and consuming ways, but Dean just — he just _enjoys_ me, as an added bonus to whatever else he has.”

Pamela is clearly trying not to make a face.

“Alright. Then — you strongly feel that you are not only the more committed party, but that you have the most at stake? The most to lose?”

“Exactly.”

She pauses, pen flying across the page for at least half a minute.

“Well, then. I think I know what we should focus on.”

“Sorry?”

Pamela just smiles, though her eyes are a little troubled.

“Our time is up for today, Castiel, but we have a lot to talk about next week. I think we made some great progress assembling the pieces. I know it wasn’t easy, but I sincerely believe it will pay off.”

And no, it wasn’t easy, but the strange thing about therapy is that sometimes, as exhausted and raw as it leaves you, the end of the session still feels like it comes too soon.

“I look forward to seeing you next week.” She pauses. “In the meantime — regardless of whether you’re right or not, I think it would help if you talked to Dean more.”

“I can’t—” he starts, but she heads him off.

“Not necessarily about this. Just — try not to be so intimidated. The core of your relationship is a very strong friendship, one that has weathered many things, all because both of you _do_ care — however you may measure that care. Needing things doesn’t make you needy — and we’ll talk more about that next week — and I think you know as well as I do that Dean would be deeply disturbed if he thought he wasn’t meeting the needs of someone he cares about. Just — I think it would benefit you both if you could try.”

“Alright,” Cas agrees.

He leaves with no intention of following through.

In his own way, though, he tries to listen.

The idea that Dean may have interpreted Cas’s lack of initiative as being in any way related to Cas’s _want_ of him, sexual or otherwise, hangs heavy in his mind. And no, he’s not about to start talking, wouldn’t know where to begin, and yes, he did understand that Pam did _not_ mean sex — but still, it’s all he knows.

Dean’s waiting when he gets home, dinner warming on the stove, and Cas eats quietly, watching him. He’s pretty sure Dean catches him more than a few times, but he doesn’t say anything about it, just maintains comfortable, intermittent, and mostly one-sided conversation.

And afterwards, after they’ve washed and dried the dishes and put away the leftovers, when Dean is just sticking the last plate in the cupboard, Cas steps behind him, touches him, leans in and kisses his shoulder.

There’s a pause, and then Dean quietly shuts the cabinet door, turning to face him with a small smile.

“What’s up, Cas?”

Cas hesitates.

“Is that a euphemism?”

And Dean laughs, and before the smile’s even left his face, he kisses Cas, so sweetly Cas can almost convince himself that nothing they talked about in therapy even matters.

That this will be enough.

“And how are things with Cas?”

Pamela says it all calm-like, like hey, it’s therapy and this is just another question, but Dean knows that glint in her eye.

He can babble about Sam and the shop and the finer points of hobby restoration work if he wants to, but Pamela could give his Dad a run for his money when it comes to reading a mark.

Not for the first time, Dean kind of hates that Cas sees her as well. It had sounded like a good idea, at the beginning; in fact, Dean privately thought it was the ideal situation. One of the strongest motivators for seeing a therapist was so that all his baggage and bullshit wouldn’t get in the way of this thing with Cas, so a therapist that could nudge him in the right direction when he started fucking up would be like a godsend, right?

Wrong.

All it means is that the last few times he’s seen her, Dean’s been tiptoeing through a fucking minefield, trying to make sure his story matches up (or at least doesn’t contradict) whatever Cas has been telling her.

Which shouldn’t be that hard; Dean pretty much knows the score. But if he can just _not tell_ without actually _lying,_ then he won’t have to deal with Pamela making him talk about feelings he can’t do a damn thing about.

Certainly, the last thing he wants is for her to indicate to _Cas_ that he’s not — that things aren’t . . . one-hundred-percent kosher.

Cas hates conflict. Dean doesn’t even want to think about what he’ll do to avoid this one, not to mention the fact that things have felt almost normal the last few days, and Dean is starting to think he can really get back to one-hundred-percent, after all.

“Good,” he says smoothly, then winks. “Was nearly late to work this morning.”

Pamela raises her brows.

“Breakfast conversation is that good, huh?”

He rolls his eyes, relaxing into the not-quite-a-lie his brain is feeding him.

“Somethin’ like that. Nah, things are nice. I mean, work is still a bitch, but, uh. We’re figuring it out. Actually, I had a — a Moondoor thing, this weekend?”

“All weekend?”

“No — I mean, yeah, but—” He colors. “Honestly, I kinda made an ass out of myself the first day. I just — uh, work, you know? It’s getting to me.”

“I see. Made an ass out of yourself in what way?”

At first, Dean can’t help the grimace, because he walked right into this one on his way to the weekend-of-quality-time lie he was about to spout — but then he realizes just what he walked in _to._

Pamela fucking _loves_ talking about his drinking and anger issues.

“Oh, uh. Well. Since I wasn’t really — into it, you know, I only went ‘cause it’s Katya’s first time—” He pauses briefly when Pamela jots something down on the legal pad, because he has no idea what it could be. He’s told her about Katya before. “—I guess I got carried away in the mock battle? And then Charlie was on my ass about it, wanted to do some intervention bullshit at the tavern, and since I got there early, I kinda . . .”

He mimes a drink, and she nods, face surprisingly free of judgment.

“Do you mind elaborating?”

“Uh. On what?”

“Either. How did you get carried away? And did you just get drunk, or were there issues?”

“Oh. Uh. Well. This guy slipped in the mud, but I thought he was attacking me, you know — which is a big no-no, by the way. Soft weapons only, no fisticuffs in Moondoor. Anyway, so I fought back, of course, but since he wasn’t really — it kind of . . .” Dean clears his throat. “Anyway, Katya pulled me off of him and Charlie was pissed since she’s real proud of our zero-visits-from-the-police thing. And then at the tavern . . .”

He hesitates, wondering if Charlie ever talks to Pamela about them, if maybe Pamela knows about the pixie.

“Well, I drank too much, and Charlie wasn’t happy, so she ordered me back to my tent and called Cas.”

Pamela frowns.

“Why did she call Cas?”

“Uh. Just — I mean, I drank a _lot,_ so . . . she probably just thought . . .”

She lifts a brow, waiting.

“I don’t know. To make sure I didn’t choke on my own vomit?”

“Do you feel like that was a valid concern?”

“Jesus, no. She’s seen me way worse. Still, sometimes she can be almost as bad as Cas when it comes to overreaction.”

“Is she?” Pamela looks curious. “And is _she_ familiar with how Cas can react?”

“Please, everybody and their mother’s familiar with how Cas can react,” Dean retorts, not thinking, and the curious look turns sharp.

“I see. So although you weren’t in any danger, and Charlie probably knew that, she still asked Cas to come down even though she’s aware of how upset he can get when you drink like that.”

Dean regrets everything.

“Uh. She probably wasn’t thinking. Or — or maybe she wanted to cause trouble for me. I was making her life pretty hard,” he jokes, but Pamela just looks at him.

“Castiel doesn’t like driving, and it must have been late. Did he have to stay the night?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“That seems very inconsiderate of Charlie.”

“Queen thing is probably going to her head,” he mumbles. “ _Anyway_ , so — so Cas came down, and I left with him the next morning and we just . . . hung out. It was nice.”

Pamela looks surprised, but pleased. Score one for subject changes.

“That’s good, Dean. I think it was great that you wanted to support your friends, but it’s always important to recognize where your limits are. You chose a really healthy alternative, as well. I’m proud of you.”

Like always, it should be patronizing, but Pamela says it so sincerely, Dean’s mostly just squirming in his chair; and maybe he should feel bad about all the lying, but most of that was truth, and actually, Dean feels pretty good about that choice.

For once, he feels like he made the right one.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, and she smiles.

“That must have been nice; the last couple of times I saw you, you expressed frustration about not having enough time to spend with Cas.”

Dean sighs.

“Yeah. Mostly, I’m just — you know, glad he’s not — mad, or anything.”

“You were worried he was angry with you?”

“I mean, yeah. Kinda.”

“Because Charlie called him? Or before that?”

Dean weighs his options. On the one hand, they’re heading straight back into dangerous territory; on the other, maybe Pam’ll finally do what he was hoping for in the first place.

“Before,” he says slowly. “I mean, with everything going on, it starts to feel like — you just, uh, don’t know where you’re at.”

“Don’t know where you’re at?”

He shrugs.

“You know. If things are okay. If he didn’t get enough sleep, or if he’s pissed at you. If he’s just really focused on work, or if — if you’re not doing something you should.”

“I see. And do you ever talk to him about it?”

Dean rolls his eyes. He can’t help himself.

“Hell no. It’s bad enough talking about it to _you._ ”

“Mm.” Pamela thinks for a moment, pen-cap tapping away against the clipboard, and it makes him nervous.

“What?” he demands, a little afraid she’s about to tell him he and Cas are never gonna work out, no matter what Dean does, which _yeah,_ fine, that makes more sense than him getting to have this, but—

But he’s not ready to hear it.

“I think,” she says slowly, “That maybe we should talk a little about ‘affirmation.’”

He breathes out.

“Affirmation,” he repeats. “What, um, what about it?”

“Whether Cas provides that. Whether _you_ provide that.”

“Uh. I’m not — I don’t know.”

She nods.

“That’s okay. We’ll talk through it. What do you think of, when you hear that word?”

“I — shit, I don’t know. Uh, reassurance, maybe?”

“Reassurance. Yes, that’s one aspect of it. Affirmation, in this case, refers to emotional support and encouragement, affection and validation. It’s important to give and receive in any kind of relationship; people need to know they’re doing well, that you care about them, that you value and believe in them. And there are a lot of ways to show that, depending on the type of relationship.” She eyes him. “For example, parents are supposed to praise their children when they do a good job, when they’re kind, or clever, or when they do as they’ve been told. They’re supposed to tell their children they love them, to let them know they’re cherished and valued. They’re supposed to support them in their goals, to verbally affirm that they believe in their capabilities. When they _don’t_ do that, it can cause a child to doubt themselves; it can make a child think they’re not good enough, they’re not capable, that their parents’ love is conditional on things they may not understand or be able to satisfy.”

Dean knows _exactly_ what she’s doing here, and he refuses to bite.

“That’s nice,” he says evenly, and she cracks a smile.

“Worth a shot.” The smile widens. “Maybe another time.”

“Yeah, sure,” he mutters, and she laughs.

“Alright. Well, then let’s talk about you and Cas.”

Dean just nods, not quite able to speak; a part of him wants to ask if they can table this for a future day, or maybe never, but a small part of him is still working through her words, is hoping maybe this’ll be something he can use.

“So, now that we’ve broken that down, I want you to think over the way you interact; do you feel like you and Cas do that? Or do you feel like there’s room for improvement?”

“Uh. I’m not sure. I guess — we’re not — we don’t really do feelings talk? But I think — I think I show him.”

“You think?”

“I mean, I definitely — do. Things. So he knows that I, um.” Dean waves a hand. “You know.”

Pamela purses her lips.

“I think I do. But it would help if you described these things to me.”

“Uh.”

And here’s the thing; Dean isn’t lying. He’s crawled back out of his shady, duplicitous little rabbit hole, free to wander the forest of truth, and he _knows_ that Cas knows how stupidly fucking far gone on him Dean is, how kickass and generally _awesome_ Dean thinks he is, has _always_ thought he is.

But right now, with Pamela asking for actual specifics . . .

He’s kind of drawing a blank.

Pamela takes a breath.

“How often do you tell Cas you love him?” she asks, and Dean is so taken aback his mouth actually falls open.

“Uhhh. What?”

“How often do you tell Cas you love him?” she repeats patiently, and wow, Dean doesn’t even _know_ where to start.

“Well. I, uh, I cook for him. I stay on top of my laundry. I put on those weird, boring documentaries he likes. You know, the usual things.”

Pamela squints.

“Alright. I allow that those are valid and important ways to show someone you care. But I was being literal.”

Yeah, Dean knew that, and Pamela’s looking at him like she knows he knew that, but—

“Listen, Pam, I get what you’re trying to say, but — me and Cas, we might not use so many words, ‘cause both of us are shit at it, but we’ve always had ways of talking anyway. We know how to show each other, whatever it is, even if I can’t think of specifics.”

“I assume I don’t need to ask how often Cas tells you, then.”

Dean tenses, then scowls.

She holds up her hands.

“Okay. Well, that’s still a good thing. Actions speak louder than words, as they say.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but,’” Dean says tiredly, and she shrugs.

“But when you and Cas first came to see me, you were _struggling_ to communicate. You had been for a long time.”

“That’s different,” Dean argues. “Unless affirmation and communication are the same thing, now.”

Pamela just looks at him.

“I saw the two of you together for nearly six months, Dean, and I can tell you right now that neither one of you were managing to convey your regard for the other person, despite how much of it you both had. If anything, your first instinct was to interpret most words and gestures in the worst way possible.

He scowls.

“Fine! We both had issues and we weren’t great at the whole affirmation thing. But we still managed, at least _enough,_ or else we wouldn’t still have been friends.”

Her lips press together.

“I see. And what about now?” she asks. “Your relationship changed. What about those aspects?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we talked about affirmation, in general. And we talked about how it applies to a parent-child relationship. Romantic relationships, however, sometimes call for yet another kind.”

Dean stares.

“Like?”

Pamela taps her pen.

“You say you managed through action, and that’s why you remained friends. Since you’ve indicated that neither of you are good with words, what actions make it so you remain partners?”

It’s a mindfuck, is what it is.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. You don’t know. And you’re also afraid he’s mad at you.”

“Well — sometimes. Not — not all the time.”

Pamela gives him a sad look.

“Then it sounds like actions aren’t quite cutting it, on either side.”

Dean lets out a frustrated huff.

“Okay? Fine, I don’t do enough. What are you telling me, here?”

“Dean, I’m not saying you don’t do enough,” she explains gently. “I’m suggesting that expressing the things you want or need to express may not be possible without words, for either one of you.”

And isn’t _that_ just great fucking news.

She shakes her head.

“I’m not telling you what to do, alright? I’m not even trying to tell you to start doing all of it right away. What I want is for you to get to a place where you don’t second-guess yourself and your relationship. And I want you to be able to provide that same reassurance, as you called it, to Cas, or whatever partners you may have in the future.”

Dean looks down.

“So you think Cas and I aren’t gonna make it.”

“That is actually not at all what I said, but the fact that your response was to ask tells me we’re on the right track.” She sighs. “Because what I am saying, is that if you _want_ to make it, you’re going to have to put in a little more effort. Maybe the two of you ‘managed,’ as you called it, when you were friends, but when you first came to see me, there were a lot of things broken. And I know you think you’ve fixed those things, but love confessions can’t fix years of hurt and miscommunication. What’s more, I don’t think you want your romantic relationship to get to the point that your friendship had. Do you?

Dean rubs a hand over tired eyes.

“No.” It almost feels like it’s too late, but no. “You’re right. I don’t, uh. I don’t know if I can do that, again, always wondering if this is the end.”

Pamela nods slowly.

“Is that how you felt? Before you came to see me?”

He swallows.

“Yeah. Yeah, I — honestly, I regretted agreeing to the bet pretty much right away, because I thought — I mean, there was a lot of shit I just didn’t understand, about how we’d got there, when things used to be so . . .” he shrugs, scratching his neck. “I was — afraid, I guess, that the bet would . . . you know. Break it for good.”

“I see. So, despite your best efforts — because we know, now, that both of you cared, very much — you often experienced anxiety that your friendship was precarious. That you might lose it.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think you would have been less worried if Cas had ever verbally expressed that you were a good friend, that he was glad you were friends, that he appreciated your finer qualities — things like that?”

“Uh.” Jesus, even now, that seems so unlike Cas. “Maybe. Hard to picture it, but — sure. Everybody likes being fawned over.”

She shakes her head.

“You can’t think of it like that. Unless he’s doing that all day, every day — occasionally using words to express fondness, appreciation, esteem — it’s just an important part of a successful relationship of any type. It leaves less room for the kinds of doubts you experienced, that you’re experiencing now.”

“I could just be being sensitive,” he tries, feeble, and is a little impressed that she doesn’t roll her eyes.

He thinks they twitch a little, though.

“You’re not. And before you tell me you can just ‘deal’ with it, I’d like to point out that eventually, Cas will notice.”

“Uh. What do you mean?”

“No one can hide their feelings forever. When one party feels anxious over their place with and value to the other party, they show it, even if they don’t say it. However, for the other person, who may not know how to interpret those signals, it may just cause a chain reaction of worry or discomfort or irritation. It breaks down communication even more, and it can have a devastating impact on a relationship and the people in it.”

“Oh.”

If Dean’s being honest, he’s never really thought too much of therapy; he’s always respected that some people really needed it, of course, but for the most part, it either seemed self-indulgent or self-flagellating, depending on the person.

And maybe other therapists are totally full of shit, but sometimes — sometimes Dean thinks Pamela might know what she’s talking about.

Like now, for instance, because what she’s saying makes a weird amount of sense to him, if he thinks about his and Cas’s friendship after high school.

“So. You and Cas are in the happy position of being best friends before lovers. And I think it’s important to treasure that aspect of your relationship, which means doing the things we talked about — saying things to express appreciation, admiration, and support. To assert that you have value to one another, outside of your romantic relationship.”

She catches his eye, lifting a brow as if to say, _do you follow_? and he nods.

“Good. But there’s also the romantic side.” She pauses. “And keep in mind, people’s needs and wants here do vary, so this one might be a bit of trial and error.”

He furrows his brow, because yeah, she’s lost him.

“How do you mean? And what’s the difference, anyway?”

“Mm. Well, it’s the difference between very close friendly or familial feelings, and romantic love. You can love someone, more than anyone else in the world, even, but that doesn’t make it romantic love.”

“Well, no, of course not.”

“So how do we let someone know they’re valued and desired as a _romantic partner_ , rather than just a beloved friend?”

“Oh.” Dean blinks. “Right. So — you've gotta do different things?”

“Probably. Not always — some people are perfectly happy with regular forms of affirmation, but most people need a little something extra to say they’re still wanted in that way.”

He makes a face.

“Well, if the sex stops, that’s a pretty good indicator.”

She arches a brow.

“You can have sex with people you’re not in love with.”

Doesn’t Dean know it.

“Yeah, sure, but—” he lifts his arms. “Won’t someone dump you if they’re not happy with you?”

She nods slowly.

“Yes, Dean. I think that’s why affirmation is so important. A child is dependent, and fears being abandoned by their parents. A friend has some emotional reliance on and investment in another friend, and is afraid of losing the company and support if that friend pulls away. And a partner — well, it’s like a friend, but they have feelings and want things, specifically with the other person, and they’re afraid if they don’t offer enough, they’ll be, as you say, ‘dumped.’”

Dean colors.

“Right, right. Sorry. Dumb question.”

She winces.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to say it was a dumb question. I just meant to point out that most of a person’s worries and insecurities stem from the knowledge that the people most important to them can just leave. What affirmation does is reduce that uncertainty, so people can continue to be open and comfortable in their relationships.”

“Makes sense,” he mumbles, then licks his lips. “So, uh. How do I . . . do that?”

Assuming Cas even needs it. Unlike Dean, Cas is a mature fucking adult who can handle his feelings, probably.

“You could ask Cas,” she offers, and he just looks at her.

“Alright. Well.” She shrugs. “It really depends on the person. For instance, it’s important to a lot of people that their partner affirm that they’re special to them. Verbalizing how much they love them, how glad they are to be with _them,_ instead of anywhere else, letting them know how much they do for them or enrich their life; it can help reassure a partner that you have incentive to be with them, that you don’t have reason to look elsewhere for your needs to be met.”

Dean tries not to cringe. Pam’s talking about feelings; the other stuff — well, Dean doesn’t need _that_ explained to him. Feelings, though . . .

“An extension of that is sometimes affirming your partner’s desirability. Letting them know that _you_ know their worth, pointing out the things about them that set them apart, verbalizing what exactly makes you attracted to them. And I’m not necessarily talking about sexually. The things that make you want to be around them. The things that made you choose them in the first place, that made you think you wanted to be with them. Even if you’ve said it before, it’s easy for people to forget, or think things have changed. It’s important to let them know you continue to notice and be drawn in by those things.

“And of course,” she adds, smiling, “There’s plain old fashioned vanity. Most people appreciate knowing their partner thinks they’re physically attractive.”

Dean opens his mouth.

“Sex isn’t always the same thing,” Pamela says sternly, and he shrinks back into the sofa. “It can be; many people grow very insecure if their partner isn’t interested in sex, or feel very desired and wanted when their partner is. But even people or couples who don’t like to have sex still like to think that when their partner looks at them, they find them attractive in a broader sense. Of course, all things vary per person, what they want to hear, what they’re comfortable hearing — at the end of the day, you need to know your partner.”

And that — for some reason, Dean’s suddenly thinking back, way back to his first serious girlfriend, Cassie. Dean had been a little in awe; he hadn’t ever met a girl quite like her, whip-smart and decisive, kind beneath the sharp edges. There was a focused energy to Cassie, a rare wit, and Dean remembered feeling like he was playing a game of hot potato, because this girl was _going_ places, places Dean could never aspire to.

Anyway, Dean wasn’t so good at expressing that awe, so it mostly came out the way it did with any other girl he was seeing; he played it safe, and told her how beautiful she was every chance he got.

She didn’t like it.

 _It’s uncomfortable,_ she finally told him. _And honestly? A little patronizing, sometimes. I appreciate it, I do, and I know you don’t mean it that way — but please don’t do that._

So Dean was embarrassed, knew he’d made an ass out of himself, could see where she was coming from — he’d had enough girls interested in free drinks or a story to tell their friends gush about how hot and handsome he was to know that yeah, it felt pretty weird — and resolved to shut up and never think about it again.

It never occurred to him, then, that there might be other people — maybe even grumpy, prickly dudes — who could stand to hear those things every now and then. Even if they didn’t seem like they’d like it.

“So — so you just — say it?” he asks, halting. “Like. I’m s’posed to go, ‘hey, Cas, you handsome devil, want dinner?’ Like that?”

Pamela’s lips twitch.

“You could. A lot of people prefer to have personal things couched in humor, to make it more comfortable.” She pauses. “But just as many might take it as a joke. At the end of the day, meeting your partner’s needs, having yours met — it’s about learning to communicate.”

“Right.” He blinks, trying to process this and already feeling a little queasy about point-blank telling Cas, _yeah, work was okay, I should probably shower, by the way, have I told you lately or ever that I think you’re the most gorgeous human being on the planet?_

Pamela eyes him with interest, and yeah, that’s fair, because he can _feel_ his ears turning red.

“Okay. Okay, yeah, I can -” he waves a hand. “All that. Try, I mean. Uh, no promises.”

She nods.

“That’s good. Try, take it one step at a time — feel out what’s comfortable for you both. And Dean?”

“Yep?”

“I think Castiel will appreciate the effort, if he knows what it is. You’ve been together, in some way, for a very long time. It’s okay if it takes time or it’s hard to figure out; this is all new to him, too, and I think you’re both prepared to be patient with each other.”

Dean just nods.

Pam’s right, in some ways; but Cas’s patience is bound to run out eventually.

Dean really can’t afford to fuck this up.

For the most part, he fucks it up.

He trips all over his words every time he tries to casually slip something into the conversation, because it’s just — god, even that first, awesome and perfect month, they razzed each other constantly. Trying to sincerely express appreciation for stuff or tell Cas how cool he is just — the words feel like marbles in his mouth, and he just can’t seem to make them come out.

And he might have done better, on some of it, if things weren’t so weird between them, but even though they still talk over dinner, still watch TV together, and sex isn’t exactly off the table, Cas is still doing that thing where he stares at Dean when he’s not looking, solemn, pensive stares Dean can’t even begin to interpret, and _Dean_ still feels weirdly shy and unsure and — yeah. It’s a mess, and Dean knows he’s probably the one causing it, isn’t doing a great job of masking his bullshit inner turmoil, but even so, he can’t bring himself to do this thing to help fix it.

Anyway, it goes like that for the rest of the week, pretty much; Dean’s sour and sullen at the garage, and at home, he alternates between tongue-tied silence and rambling chatter about absolutely nothing. He could be wrong, but he thinks even Cas is starting to notice.

And then on Sunday afternoon, when he’s sitting there while Netflix autoplays some old-timey mystery drama, Cas’s face smushed into his shoulder because he’s an old man and he needs an afternoon nap (it’s funny, damn it), Sam calls.

Dean quickly silences it, although it takes him a few tries to get the tips of his fingers on it to tug it toward himself, but it plays long enough that suddenly, the dusty little lightbulb in his head flickers on.

Dean doesn’t have to do everything all at once. He’s gotta pick one thing Pam talked about, and try it out without getting all awkward and sounding totally out of place.

And where does saying kind of awkward, out-of-place things usually get a pass?

_In the heat of the moment._

Cas watches him like a hawk while he downs his very reasonably sized glass of liquid courage, but that’s fine. Dean’s going to make it better as soon as said courage kicks in.

“Long day,” he offers, and Cas’s mouth tightens.

He makes a show of sticking the bottle back in the cupboard — which, Dean thinks it’s kind of rich that Cas gets like this every time Dean goes for the hard liquor, given that Dean has never nearly _died_ from it, but whatever — and once Cas is nice and relaxed, Dean casually invites him for a bit of before-bed TV.

Cas just looks relieved.

“Sure.”

They settle in on the sofa, and since Cas put up with it last time and Dean’s about to make it up to him with something he’ll find way more interesting, Dean snakes an arm around his shoulders.

Cas gives him that curious, sidelong look, the one Dean’s had the pleasure of receiving countless times for over a decade, and suddenly the task ahead of him seems a lot less daunting in a way that has nothing to do with the whiskey he just drank.

Because it’s not just going to be words, after all. Dean means every one of them, and it’s what makes it so hard to get them out. He’s not a talker, never has been, and this is one thing he spent years trying to avoid _thinking,_ let alone saying; but it’s been there, all along. He just has to let it go and hope it’s something Cas needs, because _Dean_ needs Cas to be happy. If he’s not, then Dean won’t be, either, and then they’re both screwed.

The episode ends, and Dean curls the hand resting on Cas’s shoulder, squeezing a little. Cas turns, blinking at him, and his eyes are so damn blue, lashes as dark as that ridiculous hair, cheekbones sharp beneath the perpetually tired creases, and Dean’s breath catches.

Because if he’s being honest, he’s always thought Cas was beautiful. From the time Cas first found him sulking on Bobby’s porch like it would somehow make his Dad reappear in the driveway, then didn’t say a goddamn word, just stared at Dean and trailed after him when Dean got uncomfortable and started walking — Dean allowed it, didn’t tell him to get lost, because he took one look at Cas and thought ‘yeah, okay. He looks interesting.’

Dean’s pretty sure that was emotionally stunted kid-speak for _pretty._

Anyway, Dean always liked how Cas looked. He liked how much he said with those eyes of his, how incredibly _blue_ they were, like he was someone from another world. He heard a girl in class gush about how nice a boy’s golden hair was, and Dean privately rolled his eyes and thought Cas’s dark, dark brown hair was _way_ cooler looking, thick and soft to the touch, and a huge mess no matter how many times his mother nagged him about looking untidy. He liked how skinny and angular Cas was, because it made him look small and vulnerable, but Dean figured out pretty quick that Cas was about a hundred times stronger and sturdier than he looked, and the contrast was just another thing that made Cas awesome. In the early days, Dean thought, grudgingly, that Cas looked like some creature out of a fairytale.

And then time passed, and Dean attributed the weird brain haze he got sometimes when he looked at Cas to just one of those good feelings you get when you look at your favorite people and their faces are just _right,_ familiar in the truest sense of the word.

But when Dean and their friends started dating and Cas didn’t, Dean managed to circumvent the rules of his conscious brain and acknowledge that Cas was _really_ good-looking, not that he was any judge, because Cas wouldn’t date and people didn’t really ask him and Dean had a lot of weird feelings about it, and one of them was confusion because how could girls be interested in all those other guys when Cas looked like _that_?

But Dean wasn’t a girl, so he probably just didn’t get it.

And then college happened, and Dean started to resent those looks, to resent how easy it made for Cas to go off and fuck around instead of hanging out with Dean, and then finally, he was forced to admit that _yeah,_ okay, he kind of wanted to fuck around with Cas, too.

Which was a fucking disaster, of course, and he ruthlessly talked himself out of it, but he still — he _noticed._

It was hard not to. The important thing was pretending it didn’t mean anything.

But it does, and Dean knows that, now, and when that surprised, expectant look on Cas’s face turns to consternation, that crease in his brow appearing, all Dean can think is _jesus fucking christ, I love you,_ and he knows now is the time to try and explain all that to Cas.

His nerves win out, and instead, he leans forward and kisses him.

He can feel Cas’s surprise in the way he flinches, lips sliding briefly away from Dean’s, but just as quickly, he moves back into the kiss, drawing a knee onto the sofa so he can turn toward Dean, pressing closer.

It’s a good sign. Dean’s pretty sure Cas just generally enjoys sex, wants it on tap if he can get it, but there’s a part of him that’s been afraid, ever since New York, that sometimes he’s just not in the mood for _Dean._ Which makes starting shit like this — well, _terrifying._

But no. Cas returns everything Dean gives with a gratifying eagerness, and when Dean pulls away, standing up and offering a hand to Cas, Cas bypasses it entirely to fling himself up and at Dean, nearly knocking him back down.

So, yeah. It’s a really good sign. Enough that Dean should feel okay tilting his head, kissing Cas’s neck, finding the words and whispering them in his ear, quiet enough that maybe he can pretend he didn’t just do it — but still, he can’t.

Instead, they kiss, and then they stumble off in the general direction of the bedroom, and eventually Dean gets most of Cas’s clothing off and maneuvers him onto the bed, and there’s yet another moment, Cas all spread out, hair a wreck, skin flushed from head to toe and pupils so blown his eyes are nearly black, that Dean nearly blurts it out.

But the words stick, and instead he scrambles out of his pants and crawls over Cas, and yeah, he fucked it up again, but all that anxiety is fading fast, shoved aside by hot kisses and skin pressed to skin and the sheer witchcraft that is Cas’s hip mobility.

Which is why it’s such a goddamn surprise when it happens, totally out of Dean’s control.

Cas is close, biting his lip and tugging at Dean’s hair and twisting underneath him, gasping barely coherent encouragements, and he just — he looks so — _so_ -

“Fuck,” Dean swears, searching out the rapture in his face with a broken sort of awe. “Fuck, Cas — you're so beautiful, you’re so fucking beautiful, you don’t even know — every time I look at you, I just — jesus, I don’t even know how you’re real, how somebody can be so fucking _perfect—_ ”

Dean doesn’t get to finish — well, not his sentence, anyway — because at some point during this clumsy, desperate speech, Cas’s eyes fly open, breath hitching, and it’s like his movements stutter as he stares up at Dean with wide eyes.

And then he’s tensing, crying out, and Dean defies anyone not to tumble right over the edge at the sight of _that._

The high is short-lived, unfortunately. He collapses onto Cas’s chest, both of them panting wildly, for what feels like no more than ten seconds before Cas is suddenly pushing at him, pushing him _off,_ and then stumbles into the bathroom without a backward glance.

Dean waits, starting to feel cold for more reasons than one, until it becomes clear that Cas isn’t coming back to share the cleanup.

So, yeah. He definitely fucked it up.


	6. my words would just evaporate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: unhealthy coping mechanisms (alcohol and marijuana), past child abuse (details in notes), attempted threesome (nobody even gets undressed, though, no worries, details in notes), brief headspace that may give you dub-con feelings though none occurs (not Dean/Cas, details in the notes), Benny/OFC, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Chapter title from _Take_ \- Echos.
> 
> Quick note: Cas reflects on his expectations and wants from sexual intimacy in one scene; please remember this is specific to Cas. This is not meant to glorify sex that involves romantic feelings or to make people who prefer those feelings to be involved the 'default.'
> 
> Thank you very much for reading ♡

Cas doesn’t get Dean.

_At all._

He’s not sure how long he spent in the bathroom last night, possibly hyperventilating, but he is sure that calling your therapist and declaring a state of emergency is not a valid response to your boyfriend rambling about how beautiful he thinks you are while in the throes of passion.

He knows that, but he still wants to. He wants to insist Pamela cancel some other poor sucker and their real, terrible problems, so he can curl up on her sofa and demand an explanation for Dean’s unnerving and bizarre behavior.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he goes to Meg’s and gets high.

“Oh, Clarence. I told you it was a bad idea,” she sighs upon opening the door.

“You said no such thing,” he grumbles, ducking under her arm and making a beeline for the sofa.

Tracy gives him a startled look, glasses slipping down her nose as her fingers freeze over the embroidery hoop.

“Oh, shit. You’re alive.”

He narrows his eyes.

“You thought I was dead?”

“For sure. Figured you picked the wrong day to smoke all her weed and Meg’s temper got you.”

“For the last time, Trace, I’ve never killed anyone in cold blood,” Meg calls from the doorway, then adds, more quietly, “Oh, hey, Mrs. Bakerton. How’s it going?”

Somewhere in the hall, a door shuts.

Meg closes her own, sauntering back inside with a sniff.

“Homophobe,” she mutters.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s it,” Tracy says cheerfully, then pats the seat next to her. “C’mere, you. I’ve never cuddled with a dead body before. Not one I liked, anyway.”

“Jesus, and you give _me_ shit.”

Cas ignores both of them, striding to the cupboard under the TV stand and feeling around.

“Oh, yeah, help yourself, Clarence,” Meg remarks sweetly. “And tell your asshole boyfriend I’m having my dealer send him the next invoice.”

He glances over his shoulder.

“Your dealer sends you an invoice?”

She waves a hand.

“You know what I meant.”

Cas fishes a plastic bag out of the VCR slot and finally goes to collapse next to Tracy, who gives him an expectant look.

He opens his arms, and she smiles, giving him a big hug.

“Good to see you, Cas,” she says, patting him on the back twice.

“Likewise.” He opens the baggy, only to be smacked across the skull by Meg. “ _Ow._ What?”

“Hello? Stop feeling up my girlfriend and stealing my weed and maybe give me a hug, too?”

“Oh.” He gives her his best contrite look, raising up on his knees to embrace her over the sofa back. “Sorry. I’ve had a hard day and sometimes you respond to hugs with punching.”

“It’s true,” Tracy agrees, and Meg returns the hug, giving his ass a squeeze.

“Like I’d kick you when you were this down.” She lets him go. “And why are you this down? Shouldn’t you be out buying your fifth pair of sheets this month so you can go right back home and ruin them again?”

Cas makes a face.

“I know how to do laundry.”

“Dean doesn’t.”

“He knows _how,_ he just chooses n-oh, I see.” He scowls at her smirk. “You’re very funny. I need paper and a lighter.”

Meg meets Tracy’s eyes over his head.

“He’s such a bitch.”

“What happened to not kicking him when he’s down?”

“Relax, he can handle it.” Meg goes into the kitchen, returning with the requested items a moment later. “There you go, angel. Wanna talk about it?”

“No,” he says, emphatic, and she shrugs.

“Sure thing.”

The three of them work in silence, and an hour later, Cas has forgotten what it means to even _be_ freaked out over something.

“There you are, dollface,” Meg murmurs, reaching out to pet his hair. “Just lie down on Tracy’s lap and tell me all about it.”

“Don’t lie down on Tracy’s lap unless you want a needle in the eye,” Tracy says quickly, so Cas very smartly stays put.

“Trace,” Meg implores. “Can’t you see he’s having a crisis? Poor baby was _shaking_ when I answered the door.”

“And a needle to the eye will make both things worse.”

Cas smiles, warmed by the exchange.

“I think we’re all bitches,” he announces, and Meg hums in agreement.

“S’why we get along.” She clears her throat. “Damn it. I wish I had some pop rocks. What’d he do, anyway? Put all your sweaters in the dryer? Send the stray kitty you found to the glue factory?”

“That’s not—” Tracy tries.

“Eat all the chocolate muffins? Or — oh, god, he forgot and flirted with the waitress, didn’t he? That girl in my chem class that he used to date complained about it _all_ the time. I’d tell you it doesn’t mean anything, but Dean’s terrible, so you should definitely break up with him,” Meg teases, but Cas just slumps into Tracy’s side.

“Careful, amigo. You’re drifting into needle territory.”

He nods, but doesn’t move.

“He didn’t really do anything. And he’s allowed to flirt with waitresses, you know.”

Meg bobs her head, earnest.

“Of course he is, Clarence. Everybody is. It’s how I met Tracy.”

Cas screws his face up.

“I thought you met at the airport. You said she forgot her wallet so you gave her your three-year horde of complimentary peanuts since her flight got delayed so long, and when they both got canceled you shared a room.”

Tracy snorts.

“ _That’s_ how you tell that story?”

“It’s romantic,” Meg insists.

“A true romantic would have just bought me dinner.”

“I was saving those!”

“You got me thrown out of the restaurant!”

“Hey, they kicked me out, too?”

“How is that better?”

“How is it _not_?”

Cas squints between them.

“So . . . Tracy wasn’t the waitress you were flirting with.”

“What? Oh. Nah. Waitress had nothing on you, babe. I was just trying to get her to look the other way when I swiped the splenda packets.”

“Oh, my god,” Tracy mutters, and returns to her embroidery with a vengeance.

“Yeah, so . . . yeah. What were we talking about?” Meg blinks into the distance, absentmindedly stroking Cas’s knee. “Ooh, yeah. Deano. Trouble in paradise.”

“Always is,” Cas sighs, shifting so he’s leaning on Meg, instead. He can’t quite get himself to sit up straight.

“The pretty ones are all like that,” Tracy comments. “So much drama.”

“He’s the prettiest,” Cas tells her solemnly, and she winks.

“Oh, I know.”

“I’d complain, but I agree.” Meg sighs. “We should order pizza.”

“That is an _excellent_ idea,” Cas enthuses, but nobody makes a move to get up.

After a couple minutes of silence, Tracy snorts, and pulls out her phone.

“I’m getting what you got last time. Nobody better complain or they get the timeout corner.”

The timeout corner is the tub in the spare bathroom that doesn’t appear to have been cleaned before the previous tenant moved out, although to the best of his knowledge, Meg and Tracy have never actually followed through on this threat.

Still, Dean looked comically distraught when he heard about it.

“Shit,” Meg mutters. “Keep getting sidetracked. Unless — hey, did you come see us ‘cause you missed us?”

Cas feels enormously guilty.

“I _did_ miss you,” he hedges, and she slaps his leg.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. As much as I like seeing you, angel, I don’t like seeing you sad.”

“It’s not that I’m — sad.” Though he is. “Mostly I’m just . . . confused. I don’t know where things stand.”

“Thought you had a big moment in the parking lot.”

“We did. And then — I don’t know. I just — I just don’t want him to feel sorry for me. That’s a shitty reason to — do stuff. And when that’s the reason, you’re going to get tired of doing it, aren’t you? And then you’ll want out.”

“Yeah, now _I’m_ confused.”

“You see?” he spreads his palms, listless and morose. “It’s confusing. We don’t do that. And he did.”

“What don’t we do?” Tracy asks, nudging him.

“Say things like that.”

“Like what?”

Cas frowns at her.

“I tell _you_ he’s pretty. But I don’t tell _him._ You _know_?”

“I — think?”

“Good.” He nods. “Dean’s very attached to me. I told her that. But that’s different than how pretty I think he is.”

He abruptly sits up.

“Oh _no,_ ” he breathes, suddenly frantic. “She talked to him. I thought that wasn’t _allowed._ ”

“Who talked to who ‘bout what now?” Tracy asks, looking up from her phone.

“My therapist. I think she told him what I said and now he feels bad and he’s being strange.” Cas buries his face in his hands. “This is _horrible._ ”

“Uh. Like, unless you’re seeing a real shifty kinda lady, your therapist probably didn’t tell Dean what you talked about. Or let it dictate what _they_ talked about,” Tracy points out, and Cas brightens.

“Do you think so?”

“Ninety-nine percent, hon.”

Then he deflates.

“Then why’d he do it? I don’t want it.” He clenches his fist, staring at the wood grain of the coffee table. “Not if he doesn’t mean it.”

“He could mean it,” Meg offers, perplexed but friendly. “I have no clue what it is, but he could.”

“He doesn’t. I’d know,” Cas assures her. “If he did, we wouldn’t be . . .”

He waves a hand.

“Like we are. But that means he’s playing a _game,_ and I don’t know the rules.” He turns to her, imploring. “Meg, _I don’t know the rules._ What do I do?”

“Uh.” She blinks, then punches a fist in the air. “Eat pizza and crash in our spare room?”

And that, Cas decides, is an _excellent_ idea.

Cas is asleep when Dean leaves the next morning, which is a relief, in some ways, because Dean is still completely humiliated from the night before and it seems awkward to face Cas when they both know what he did. It’s disappointing in others, though, because even if that was weird and off-putting, Dean’s not sure it merited staying in the bathroom until Dean fell asleep, which took at least an hour, probably more, on account of the fact that Cas was _hiding in the bathroom._

Cas not being there at all when he gets home . . . yeah, that’s less of a relief. Dean has questions, and even if he doesn’t know how to ask them, he’s hoping he can find some of the answers in how Cas is behaving today.

And Cas not coming home at _all_ that night?

Dean arranges a last-minute date with Jameson, and decides that Pamela and therapy in general can go fuck themselves.

Because he doesn’t need help ruining everything, thanks.

He was doing just fine on his own.

Cas feels a lot better after a pizza night with friends, pretending his problems don’t exist, although waking up alone in Meg’s guest room briefly dampens his mood.

And then there is, of course, the matter of facing Dean.

Cas maintains that it’s Dean’s own damn fault for playing whatever game he’s trying to play, completely out of left-field to boot, but a part of him is afraid that maybe it’s a little bit Cas’s fault, too.

Pamela’s evaluation of the situation was likely just wishful thinking; Dean got tired of him, but Cas kept pushing and Dean, in that fucked up way of his, probably felt like he had to try and be a good boyfriend by giving into Cas’s demands.

And then, when Cas assumed Pamela knew what she was talking about (which was _stupid,_ because no matter how smart the woman is, she still can’t know Dean better than Cas), and proceeded to repeatedly throw himself at Dean, Dean probably thought that was Cas asking for _more._

And that strange, unsettling thing he did?

He probably thought that was what Cas was looking for.

Well, Cas can appreciate _that,_ at least, even if Dean should know Cas well enough to realize that he doesn’t want or expect that from Dean if it’s not something he actually wants to give. A part of Cas understands that this is not a normal relationship for Dean, that Dean didn’t really fall in love with him so much as get used to loving him, because he’s Dean, and that’s what he does.

And perhaps that’s a sign that Cas is taking advantage, but Dean is also a fucking adult and he has a therapist, too, so if he wants out, he can figure it out his goddamn self.

In any case, Cas is prepared to overlook it and stop trying to harass Dean for sex all the time, and beyond that — he just hopes things won’t be too weird.

And they’re not weird, not really.

Weird sounds a thousand times better than what he actually gets.

“Oh, hey, Cas,” Dean greets him, unlacing his boots and tossing them by the door. He smiles, and for a brief, lovely moment, Cas feels reassured. “How’s the work going?”

Cas looks down at his pile of papers.

“Alright. It’s going. You?”

Dean sighs.

“Same as always. Kind of a long day, though, so I’m gonna grab a shower and go out with Benny. Leftovers are in the fridge.”

He squeezes Cas’s shoulder as he passes, and then he’s gone.

When he comes back out, he has one of his nice shirts on, the navy one Cas secretly likes even better than the forest green one, and he’s wearing cologne.

Cas’s mouth goes dry.

This is not Dean’s bitching-over-drinks-at-a-divebar look. This is his picking-up-boys-or-girls-at-a-decently-respectable-establishment look.

And it’s a testament to just how _crazy_ Cas really is that his first instinct is to be pissed at _Benny,_ because he has the nerve to still be single and available for cruising.

“See you later,” Dean calls over his shoulder, snagging his jacket and keys, and a few minutes later, the door shuts behind him.

“Don’t know why we couldn’t have just gone to O’Brien’s.”

“’Cause I want you to meet this girl, brother. And, you know, tell me if you think it’s on.”

“As busy as we’ve been, when have you even had time to scout out hot bartenders?”

“Yeah, I’m sure _y_ _ou_ haven’t wanted a drink after some o’ the days we’ve had.”

“Whatever,” Dean grumbles, tugging at the collar of his button-down. “This isn’t an after-work-drinks kind of place.”

Benny smiles enigmatically.

“Oh, wait ‘till you try the food. You’ll see.”

Benny’s right; as far as pub food goes, this is some of the best Dean’s had, and he grudgingly acknowledges the merits of Benny’s adventurous foodie tendencies.

“Aw, here she comes,” Benny mumbles around seven o’ clock, straightening up a little, and Dean casts a casual glance around, and if he knows Benny, he’s pretty sure the slender, dark-eyed babe with the thick braid is the target.

But then she steps to the side, and there’s a freaking tiny blue-haired thing with a fierce scowl striding toward the bar.

Until she sees Benny, at which she lights the fuck up, breaking out into an unexpectedly sweet, shy smile.

“Oh, hell no,” Dean mutters. “Dude, you’re gonna get arrested.”

“She’s twenty-five,” he mutters right back. “Just — you gotta meet her.”

“Hey, Benny,” she greets him quietly, eyes warm and twinkly, and then she glances at Dean and her face freezes.

“Hey,” Dean offers, lifting his drink, and she just blinks.

“Oh, shit,” she mumbles to herself, then sighs gloomily, voice resigned. “Is this your boyfriend? Nice going, I guess.”

She offers a limp fist for bumping, big brown eyes full of disappointment, and Dean just — can’t even. He feels like he’s stepped in an alternate dimension.

Benny lurches halfway out of his seat beside him.

“ _What —_ aw, no, no, cher, this is just Dean.”

“Thanks,” Dean says sarcastically, but she’s biting her lip and looking hopeful.

“Oh, like, business partner Dean? With, um, the boyfriend?”

Benny nods eagerly.

“Yeah, yeah. That guy.” He gives her this dopey smile, and her mouth twitches upward as she awkwardly tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, eyes on the floor.

“Oh. Cool. Congratulations, dude.” Almost as an afterthought, she curls her first again, lifting it toward Dean with a tentative smile.

He bumps it, hoping his face looks normal.

“Thanks, sweetheart. You, too.”

She makes a face, then looks confused.

“Wait, what?”

“Anyway, it’s real nice to meet you, Miss . . .?” He gives Benny a pointed look, and he starts.

“Oh, right, yeah.” He chuckles, hands in his pockets. “Dean, this is Evie.”

Evie hesitates, face taking on a small sort of half-smile as she scratches her nose.

“Also answers to ‘cher,’" she quips, barely more than a mumble, and Dean doesn’t know whether this is more gross or hilarious.

Hilarious, probably.

“Evie. Well, like I said, nice to meet you. I’m just gonna step out for a quick phone call.” He grins wide, and as he passes Benny, he whispers, “ _To the police._ ”

“Shut up,” Benny hisses back, and Dean smirks on his way out of the restaurant.

Dean doesn’t make a phone call, although if the thought of Cas wasn’t making him feel a little cold and queasy right now, he’d be dying to text him about Benny’s awkward high-school girlfriend. And okay, fine, on second glance, she's obviously plenty old, but even so _—_ Dean's known Benny for practically ever and he would never have called it.

As it is, he gets halfway through a text before he chickens out, and that right there is the problem with your partner being the same person as your best friend. A fight with one is a fight with the other, and then what have you got?

Well, Sam, and Charlie and Jo, but none of them are going to be waiting at home for Dean to grab a midnight snack and gossip with.

Not that _Cas_ will be. He could be anywhere, especially now that Dean made sex at home _weird_ in addition to boring.

Jesus, he needs a drink.

He gives Benny another few minutes to romance his derpy girlfriend, and then he heads back in. She’s fixing somebody else’s drink, so Dean settles back on his stool and polishes off the rest of his fries, waiting for Benny to crack.

“So?” he finally says, voice low, one eye on the figure at the other end of the bar. “Whaddya think, brother?”

“She’s _adorable,_ ” Dean enthuses, unable to resist. “Just wanna take her home and buy her kittens and lollipops.”

“Twenty-five,” Benny repeats, unimpressed. “C’mon, now. We all put up with your Cas drama for over a decade. I’m thinkin’ you owe me.”

Dean sighs.

“She likes you. Didn’t you see her face when she thought we were dating? It was like Cindy Lou Who just found out the Grinch was evil.”

Benny looks caught between hope and disapproval.

“Yeah? You think so?”

“If that girl’s not into you, then I don’t know anything at all.”

Benny frowns.

“Well, that ain’t a ringin’ endorsement, brother.”

“Yeah, you shut your mouth,” Dean mutters, and gives a big, friendly wave to Evie so he can ask her to bring him something to drink.

“You already had a couple,” Benny says carefully. “You sure you wanna do that?”

“If I’m gonna sit here and watch you flirt.”

Evie looks reasonably friendly when she brings it by, pausing a step and then quickly stealing a fry off Benny’s plate before rushing away, hiding a small, guilty smile.

Benny just stares after her with gross doe-eyes, and Dean’s so fucking glad he and Cas were never like this.

For about two-point-five seconds, before he abruptly wonders if that should be a warning sign, or something, and then he downs the rest of his drink, because all the goddamn therapy is clearly getting to him.

Next to him, Benny sighs, and even though something about it sounds judgmental, Dean tells himself it’s just Benny being lovesick.

It was the second year of high school that Dean started drinking, and to Cas’s dismay, it was then that he discovered he liked it a little too much.

Cas, for his part, didn’t understand the appeal, had a strong bias against it, thanks to John Winchester, and was consistently baffled as to how other kids even got their hands on so much alcohol.

At any rate, with the presence of their other friends, Dean didn’t seem to be in any kind of danger Cas could protect him from, there or not; so given a choice of standing around a stranger’s house while Dean got drunk and flirted with various girls for several hours (and risking his mother’s ire for his trouble) . . . Cas declined.

He quickly found, though, that on the nights Dean got carried away, actually managed to get himself _wasted,_ he’d come to find him.

It was not a difficult task — Cas was just in his room, of course — but it did mean that Cas nearly had a heart attack the first few times Dean showed up, tipsy and grinning and right outside on the roof.

And certainly, Dean could drink an _astonishing_ amount and still stay steady, but watching him balance on the sloped, uneven shingles when he was _sober_ made Cas nervous; drunk, it terrified him.

So even though Cas didn’t go to the parties, he knew there was a chance Dean would be coming to him. On those nights, he’d quietly climb out onto the roof and wait, book in hand, and if Dean did appear, Cas would watch like a hawk as he clambered up, ready to help.

Of course, anytime he _actually_ tried to help, it pissed Dean off; but mostly, if he just let Dean be when he was drunk, he was sweet. Nonsensical, but sweet.

He’d find Cas waiting up there, give him that easy grin and crawl over to perch next to him.

“Don’t want you to fall,” he’d mumble, putting his arm around Cas and holding on tight. “Gotta make sure you don’t fall.”

Puzzling and inscrutable though the words were, Cas always leaned into him, subtly holding him back, just in case.

Dean would just sit quietly, or ramble somewhat incoherently, but eventually Cas would pretend to be feeling unsteady himself to coax Dean inside to sleep, Dean agreeing because, once again, “Can’t let you fall, Cas, gotta make sure.”

And on these rare nights, Cas would tuck Dean in right next to the wall, where he couldn’t help but feel it really _was_ safer, inebriated persons being much less likely to tumble out of bed, and like that, they would sleep.

Of course, Cas always woke up the next morning, their positions reversed, and while he could never say for sure what had happened, he was generally inclined to think it was something Dean did.

For about a year, it went on like this, no more than a few times a month, and Dean never remembered much about it, seemed vaguely perturbed to find himself in Cas’s bed the next morning, though the surprise wore off after enough times. Given his confusion, Cas didn’t see much point in asking him why he _did_ do that.

One night, though, Dean’s arm a comforting weight across his shoulders, Cas did ask, hoping his drunken self might have better answers to a puzzle that regularly frustrated Cas.

Dean just rolled his eyes.

“Y’don’t come with me,” he explained, like it should be obvious. “I gotta check on you.”

Mystified, Cas resigned himself to his confusion, and no more questions were asked.

It stopped, eventually, for a reason Cas should have expected, but somehow didn’t.

Cas’s mother walked in one morning when, ironically, Dean rolled a little too far toward the edge and fell out with a thump.

To be honest, his mother had grown so indifferent over the few years prior that aside from intermittent lectures, Cas was used to just being ignored. Certainly, those incidents with Anna lurked in the back of his mind, had him creeping around the edges of her notice with deft dedication, but he must have been overconfident, because the yelling took him by surprise.

Not as much as the slap did.

“ _Hey!_ ” Dean shouted, equally taken aback, seizing Cas’s shoulder and pulling him back to safety while Cas numbly pressed a hand to his cheek. “Don’t you fucking touch him!”

His mother was not impressed.

“Don’t _you_ tell me what to do with my _son._ Get out of my house before I call the police,” she said calmly. “And be grateful I know better than to assume what most people would have, seeing _that._ ”

Without another word, she turned on her heel and left the room.

Dean stopped showing up after that, and very light, careful questioning of Charlie and Benny confirmed that he stopped drinking, too, never more than a few beers on any given night.

No, after that, Dean saved his truly heavy drinking for special occasions, the kind of special that left him hollow and wretched and beyond any comfort.

Because while Cas was always afraid that Dean would be like his father, Dean really doesn’t get mean when he gets drunk so much as he gets hopeless, and Cas never could stand seeing him that way.

But every time something serious happens, every time the doubt or self-loathing or whatever gets its claws into him, Dean gets drunk, and he gets hopeless — and at times like this, like walking into the living room to find Dean passed out on the sofa, shoes still on, Cas is afraid that someday, he might just have to get used to it.

It’s childish, but there’s a part of Cas that kind of thinks that if Cas drinks it first, that means Dean can’t.

Three nights pass, Dean paying scrupulous attention to the fill-level of his glass while he sits quietly after work and Cas looks on, alternating between anger and anxiousness, before he takes the last bottle of Dean’s favorite and flees to Meg and Tracy’s once more.

It feels cowardly, but bearing witness to Dean’s self-destruction helps neither of them, and Cas doesn’t think he can take another night sitting in silence while Dean drinks and Cas tries and fails to understand how things went so wrong. A night in with friends whose feelings don’t terrify him, getting drunk off his ass and crashing in their comfy spare bedroom, sounds like exactly what he needs.

Which is why it’s such a surprise when Tracy and Meg are jointly pouring him into a cab and sending him home.

“I’m sorry,” he says miserably, deeply disturbed by this eviction. “I didn’t mean to be a nuisance. You should have said. If — if you let me sleep in the guest room, I’ll be very quiet.”

“Jesus, Clarence, that’s not — oh, fuck, don’t _pout_.”

“You’re not a nuisance, Cas,” Tracy says, poking him on the forehead, then brushes back his hair. He blinks at her sadly, because she must be lying, or else he would be tucked up in their cozy guest bed. “But this is the second time this week, which means it didn’t get resolved the first time.”

“And your dumbass boyfriend should know what he’s doing to you,” Meg finishes helpfully.

“That won’t solve anything,” he protests, and Meg shakes her head.

“Angel, everybody but you knows Deano can’t resist your sad eyes. It just kills the poor bastard. Go show them to him so he starts doing what you want, okay?”

Cas gives a frustrated sigh, one he thinks the cab driver might echo, but he ignores it.

“I don’t _want_ him to do what I want.” Cas isn’t actually sure what he wants. He just knows it has everything to do with Dean.

“Well, no wonder you’re not happy in your relationship,” Meg says cheerfully, and Tracy elbows her.

“What Meg’s trying to say is that maybe it’s time to talk about it instead of running away.” Her eyes soften. “We just want you to be happy, babe.”

“I’d be happier in your guest room,” he mumbles petulantly, and Meg rolls her eyes.

“Look, Clarence, if that’s _really_ what you want, then let’s send this nice man on his way and take you back upstairs. But personally? I think what you really want is to kiss and make up with pretty-boy.”

Cas considers this.

“Yes. But I don’t know how.”

“I do. Step one, give him sad eyes! Step 2, tell him you want to kiss and make up. Bam. Relationship fixed.”

He gives her a sour look.

“It’s not that easy.”

“But it’s a start.”

“A lot of that was ridiculous oversimplification, but for the most part, she’s right,” Tracy says, sighing. “What’ll it be, Cas?”

It takes him a long moment to decide, the driver coughing impatiently.

“I’ll . . . go home,” he says eventually, not because he thinks that will achieve anything, or even because he doesn’t want to be a burden on Meg and Tracy, but because he thought about seeing Dean and even though he _knows_ it will probably be tense and awkward, just like the last few nights, it still sounds like a good idea.

“Alrighty, angelface.” Meg leans in and busses his cheek. “Give ‘em hell.”

“Don’t give ‘em hell,” Tracy says tiredly. “Tell him you love him or something, even though he’s a huge ass.”

“Your advice isn’t better,” Meg comments, unimpressed, and Tracy ignores her.

“Call us in the morning. We love you. Good night.”

She nudges his legs a little further into the car and shuts the door.

A moment later, the car glides into motion — just as _Boy Problems_ start playing, and the driver snickers quietly to himself.

Dean knew better.

Things were already weird again with Cas, and yet Dean went and did the one thing he _knows_ Cas hates.

He drank. A lot. Every day, kind of.

And now Cas is gone again, and the only thing worse than Cas being gone is Cas being gone when Dean can only wonder where it was he went.

So wonder he does, from the time he gets home at seven and fixes dinner he’s pretty sure only he’ll be eating, and straight through the agonizing minutes of three episodes of some mediocre SyFy original, pretty sure he’s wondering for nothing, because let’s be real; the _where_ isn’t important this time.

It’s the _who._

Which is why it’s such a surprise when Cas stumbles in before ten PM, drunk off his ass and looking suspiciously put together, aside from the smell of Dean’s favorite whiskey and the unsteady tilt to his stance.

Put together in a way that suggests maybe nobody’s spent the last few hours taking him apart, and even though it wouldn’t change anything, Dean can’t help but hope.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas greets him, probably noticing the way Dean has jumped up off the sofa and is staring at him with big, dumb eyes. He steadies himself against the door before appearing to lose some kind of battle with it, slowly sliding down it to the floor.

“Shit, Cas _—_ ” Dean shakes himself out of his stupor and rushes over, doesn’t even think twice about putting a hand on his back. “Where — where’ve you been?”

Cas blinks at him.

“I think Meg and Tracy are out of liquor now.” A small, smug smile creeps across his face, a sudden glint to his unfocused gaze. “So are you.”

And honestly, just off the top of his head, Dean knows he has spare booze littered across the apartment, in duffel bags, at the back of closets, in the third nightstand drawer that sticks when you try to open it, because if his Dad taught him nothing else, he taught Dean to always have a backup — but Cas doesn’t need to know that if he doesn’t already, and either way, Dean’s not too worried about it.

No, mostly Dean has no fucking clue why Cas did this to himself, because this isn’t _fun_ drunk, not even close; this is miles past it, well into territory Cas usually avoids like the plague.

“Thought this was my move,” Dean jokes weakly, keeping his arm around Cas and trying not to panic about what this means.

Cas snorts.

“Yes, well. It’s not _always_ about you.”

And yeah, Dean has no idea what to do with that, so he ignores it.

“Alright. Let’s get you to bed.”

Cas shakes his head, resting it on his knees.

“’M fine here.”

“Nah, I don’t think so. You’ll feel better if you lie down.”

“If you’re trying to come onto me, you may have to wait,” Cas informs him, limply gesturing to his lap. “Sorry. I wasn’t planning on coming home.”

Dean swallows, decides it doesn’t matter. He’d better get used to it, right?

“Whatever. We’re not doing anything when you’re this drunk, whether you can get it up or not.”

Cas shrugs.

“Okay. It’s nice to see you, anyway.” He leers a little. “You could always start without me. I can catch up.”

Dean just rolls his eyes. Typical Cas. Even totally wasted and probably pissed at Dean, if the last several days are anything to go by, he’s still trying to throw down with the nearest breathing thing.

Dean removes his arm, and Cas immediately starts tipping sideways.

“Still think you’re fine?” he asks dryly, and Cas sighs, hand scrabbling against the floor to hold himself up.

“You’re _insufferable_ when you’re right, you know.”

“I know.” Cas has said so before. Actually, Sam and Jo have, too. And Charlie and Benny, and maybe every single one of his exes.

Whatever. Not important.

“C’mon, buddy.” He tucks his shoulder under Cas’s, sliding his other arm behind Cas’s knees and leveraging him up until he’s draped over Dean’s shoulder. Then he hoists himself upright, taking Cas with him.

“If you vomit . . .” he warns him, not that it’ll do much good, and swears to God he hears Cas giggle.

It takes a little while to get to the bedroom. Cas has been eating way better since they started fake-dating, and while he’s still lean by any definition, he’s not exactly light as a feather, and hauling him to the bed is no mean feat.

Still, Dean manages, gently setting Cas down on the bed, where he blinks up at Dean with a hazy smile.

“You’re lucky I wasn’t drinking tonight,” Dean says, severe, although Cas is stupidly adorable like this and all he wants to do is get him some water and then crawl into bed to snuggle with him.

But they don’t do that, and Dean’s not sure he can handle Cas pushing him away, not when he’s drunk and honest enough to mean it in more ways than one.

Cas just smiles wider.

“I _am_ lucky, indeed. Practically a fantasy come true.”

He winks, in that awkward way of his, and Dean frowns.

“Excuse me?”

Cas chuckles.

“Had a dream like that. Before we were dating. I was a time-traveler, stuck in prehistoric times, and you . . . you were the most clean-shaven caveman ever to exist.”

“You love my beard,” Dean mutters, face a little hot. Cas has that far away, lust-drenched look in his eyes, and Dean thinks this was _probably_ not an innocent dream.

“Absence doesn’t make the heart grow _that_ much fonder,” Cas retorts.

“Whatever. Couldn’t keep your damn hands off my face when it was growing in.” Dean remembers sitting there, vaguely hypnotized as Cas’s soft hands pet over his jaw, blue eyes staring into Dean’s face with fascination. Only Bobby’s appearance in the doorway tore him from his trance, and he quickly shook Cas off, because something about it made him feel really weird.

Dean’s pretty sure he knows what that was, now.

“Because it was so _bizarre_ ,” Cas insists, and he has the nerve to sound a little awestruck, still.

Dean scowls.

“Alright. Tell me more about this dirty caveman fantasy.”

“I never said you were _dirty,_ ” Cas chides him, clearly missing the fucking point, and continues. “You were basically yourself, but a caveman. With suspiciously good teeth. Anyway, you found me, and you didn’t understand a word I said, but you threw me over your shoulder and took me back to your cave anyway.”

At that, Dean smiles, amused in spite of himself.

“Yeah? And what’d you do when we got there? Kicked my ass, I bet.”

Cas’s little smile fades, and it takes him a moment to respond.

“No,” he says, soft. “I let you. I was glad you found me. Even in my dreams, I wanted you to take me.”

Dean’s own smile falls at the bitterness in Cas’s voice, and since he doesn’t know what to say to that, what Cas even means by it, he says nothing.

But after a couple of minutes of heavy silence, he can’t help himself.

“Cas,” he says quietly.

“Hm?”

“Are you — are you happy? Do I — make you happy?”

Cas studies him for a long moment, so long Dean regrets asking, because there’s a shadow in his eyes and Dean’s fucking terrified of what put it there.

“Yes,” he murmurs, and even though Dean feels like there’s a ‘but’ somewhere in there, he tells himself the _yes_ is all that matters.

>> when should I pick you up???

Cas squints at the text from Meg, baffled.

<< For what?

>> the work party you said you’d come translate at

<< When did I say this?

>> last night when you were drunk

Oh. Cas wants to accuse her of making things up, but he can maybe, perhaps, vaguely recall.

Damn.

<< Dress code?

>> suit and tie, angel. tell Deano I say, ‘you’re welcome’

He sighs.

<< Time?

>> 7 if you can

<< Alright.

Resigned, Cas heads for the shower.

Dean is just getting home when he comes out of the bathroom, appropriately suited up and tie a wreck, as per usual.

Hopefully, Meg can fix it.

“Woah,” Dean says when he sees him, staring for a moment. “Uh. Hot date?”

“Meg needs a translator for a work event.”

“Oh. Cool.” Dean scrutinizes him, hesitating. “Uh, want me to get your tie?”

“Oh.” Cas blinks, tries not to perk up. “If you don’t mind.”

Dean wiggles his fingers, cracking a smile.

“Washed all the grease off and everything.”

Cas shuffles over, and Dean cracks a smile, tugging at the disaster of a knot.

“It’s like you _try_ to do it wrong.”

 _Habit,_ he almost says, because that’s exactly what he used to do in high school, but that’s also extremely fucking embarrassing and he’d rather Dean not know.

Dean unknots it, and if Cas didn’t know any better, he’d swear he takes his sweet time redoing it, warm fingers brushing against Cas’s jaw as he works.

Still, it ends too soon.

Stepping back, Dean whistles, admiring his handiwork.

“Gonna be translating pickup lines all night, I bet,” he remarks, and then his face freezes, shifting into a strange sort of grimace. “Uh. Yeah. Anyway, I gotta shower. Have a good time.”

With a short nod, Dean turns abruptly, heading for the bathroom.

Cas just sighs, and wishes this was one of those times he was supposed to follow.

Instead, he goes downstairs to wait for Meg.

Cas is not sure how he ended up in a hotel room with the objectively attractive couple he is now pressed between.

That is, he’s aware he hasn’t been kidnapped, and technically he _does_ recall them chatting him up at the (open) bar, as well as the moment he _realized_ that’s what they were doing, and he even remembers thinking to himself, _why not? Why shouldn’t I?_

But still, now that he’s here, now that a hot mouth is dragging along his neck, two pairs of hands roaming his body, clearly intending to strip it of its cover, he’s experiencing the peculiar, disembodied sensation of someone who has led themselves into a situation they may, perhaps, not actually want to be in.

It isn’t fair. As down and unhappy as Cas has been, sex is a no-brainer. It does the body good, floods the mind with some of the best drugs nature can produce, and if you’re doing it right, no one expects anything from you except an orgasm.

But Cas _has_ come to expect things from sex, besides an orgasm. And maybe that’s part of the problem — maybe that’s why he’s being denied those things — but knowing that doesn’t change the fact that he’s used to it now, and what’s worse, Cas has come to want to _give_ those things, as well.

They are not things he has the capacity to give strangers, any more than a stranger would want them.

Still, Cas should be able to enjoy this. These people would be considered very lovely by any standard, not that that was ever much of a priority for Cas, as much as he likes looking at aesthetically pleasing things, and more importantly, they’re Cas’s favorite kind of couple to sleep with; they’re clever and playful and the affection between them is so apparent and immense, it should be a privilege to witness it, to be invited to share in it for this brief, relaxed spell.

Cas mostly just feels a little sick, a little despondent that these touches are unfamiliar, and since when did Cas have such juvenile, sentimental standards? Since when did he have standards beyond ‘neither an asshole or emotionally vulnerable and interested’?

Since when did he lose the ability to separate his feelings for Dean with the other comforts he allowed himself?

They’re heavy thoughts, and although Cas tries to draw upon his skills, to move his mouth and his hands in a way that will make these people’s night worthwhile, since that’s what he’s committed to do, it’s apparently not enough.

The girl stops kissing his neck, stepping back, and her boyfriend must follow suit, because there’s suddenly a lot of cold air around him.

“You don’t seem into this,” she says bluntly, though her face is all concern. “Are you okay?”

Cas opens his mouth, ready to apologize, to make an excuse or offer to try again.

But nothing comes out.

“Oh, no,” her boyfriend says, sounding dismayed. “We did something, didn’t we? We’re so sorry, we didn’t mean to push you _—_ ”

“You didn’t,” Cas says hastily. “No, you’re not at all at fault. You were very up front, and you made an extremely attractive offer. I just — I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Although he sort of does. He knows Dean stopped touching him when they were about twenty, and Cas contented himself with all the touches he got from strangers, touches so far removed in purpose and significance from anything Dean gave him, they were genuinely and completely unrelated.

And yet, now, now that Cas knows how Dean can touch him, how it feels to assume some reciprocated feeling behind it when it happens — Cas can’t even enjoy something that was once one of his few comforts.

“Nothing’s wrong with you,” she tells him slowly, brown eyes kind. Cas thinks her name is Ella. “Whatever it is — you know, it’s cool, hon. Uh — but if you wanna talk about it, we can do that.”

Cas blinks, glances at his watch.

“You still have time to find someone else, I think.”

They both shrug, comically in sync.

“It was kind of a whim,” the guy — Devon or Damon or something — explains, then adds awkwardly. “You’re super hot.”

“Totally,” Ella agrees, nodding.

Cas sighs.

“Thank you. You’re a very beautiful couple. I sincerely regret — whatever is going on with me.”

“Aw, shucks. Thanks.” Ella reaches forward to give his arm a squeeze, then looks uncertain and changes it to a tentative punch at the last minute.

Behind him, Probably-Devon snorts.

“You know that was just as bad, right?” he says, but he sounds fond more than anything, and Ella just rolls her eyes.

“Anyway, Castiel. If you want to just, you know — jet, that’s cool, but you seem really — distressed? Especially if you’re feeling bad about all this _—_ ” she waves a hand, “We might want to talk it out? So you don’t leave in like, a weird mood.”

Cas smiles at the worry in her tone.

“It’s nothing like that, I promise.” He looks down. “I just — honestly, I have a boyfriend, and though he recently asked for an open relationship, I guess I . . .”

He shrugs, ashamed. Here are two functional, rational people, enjoying a very strong partnership and ready to share some of the recreational benefits with other people, but Cas is a selfish and petty child who not only doesn’t want to share a goddamn thing, he’s depriving _himself_ of enjoying other things, too.

“Yikes,” Probably-Devon mutters. “Sooo. Have you talked to your guy about it?”

Cas turns slightly, tilting his head.

“About what?”

“About how you feel about — all that?”

He blinks.

“Does it matter?”

Ella inhales sharply.

“Sweetie, of _course_ it matters!” She pauses, then slings an arm around him, ushering him to the little sofa, where she and fuck-it-his-name-is-Devon sit down on either side of him. “Like, I’ve had boyfriends and girlfriends who weren’t comfortable with it, and since I’m cool doing the monogamy thing if I have a good reason, that was fine — but nobody should feel like they have to just agree to _anything_ to keep a relationship.”

Cas swallows.

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? I’m not a good reason.”

Ella winces.

“Shoot, that’s not what I _—_ ”

“And anyway, the hard line for me isn’t him seeing other people. My line is breaking up.” Cas spreads his palms. “So I think, actually, I _do_ have to agree to anything to keep a relationship.”

“That’s kinda . . . not good,” Devon declares, obviously perturbed, and Ella nods.

“Yeah. Did you — did you tell him that?”

Cas just gives her a look.

“I have no desire to control or emotionally blackmail him.”

“Okay. Okay, I totally see your point, but I mean — if it’s how you feel . . .”

“Which is _another_ thing,” he mutters. “I _shouldn’t_ feel that way. I thought I figured this all out in college. The three of us should be having an _excellent_ time right now, but instead I’m ruining _all_ of our nights by giving into stupid, traditional ideas about love.”

He props his elbows on his knees, hanging his head. It’s just — it’s so _stupid,_ and he _knows_ better. Why is he _like_ this?

There’s a brief silence, during which he can practically feel the pair of them exchanging glances over his head.

Ella clears her throat.

“So. So, here’s the thing. I really like what we have. And knowing Devon likes it, too, that makes it doubly awesome. And sure, I think there are probably more people like us who don’t know it or won’t admit it because of, well, bullshit traditional views _—_ but the reality is, Castiel, the bullshit part is the part where they try and say how everybody should be, right?”

He lifts his head and squints at her.

“What?”

“You know. The real problem with tradition. It’s not about what the tradition is, it’s about the fact that it’s _tradition_. That there’s like, a blanket expectation for all different types of people.”

“Well — yes.”

“Yeah!” She looks relieved. “So I guess what I’m trying to tell you is — even if you, and a bunch of other people, feel that way, that doesn’t make it _wrong._ That just makes it how you’re made. Which is good, too. There’s no better or worse, right? There’s just — people. Doing what makes them happy. The only time it’s bad is when they’re doing it that way because somebody else said they had to, or when they’re telling someone else what to do.”

He hesitates.

“Logically, your way makes more sense. I’ve always thought so.”

“God, since when did sense come into it? For the record, I never rationalized it out and decided to be this way. It’s just how I _am._ And it’s not like I don’t feel things like possessiveness and jealousy. I was definitely one of those girls in school who freaked the hell out when her friend started playing barbies and collecting stickers with another kid.”

“Exactly!” Devon chimes in. “It’s just _human_ to be jealous when someone you care about does something with someone else that you usually do together. I mean, not _all_ humans, probably, but like, for me, I don’t care who she sleeps with, but if she watched our favorite shows or tried a new one with someone else, I’d probably go eighties romance hero on them.”

Ella snorts.

“No, you wouldn’t. I don’t think you _can_ go eighties romance hero on anything.”

“I could,” he insists, lifting his palms. “I’d like, kick in the door and pull you off the sofa and shout, ‘The girl’s coming with me, buddy, or else you’ll be finding out the meaning of Netflix and _kill_.’”

She chokes.

“That’s not eighties romance hero,” she protests through her laughter. “That’s just batshit crazy _._ ”

“ _They’re the same thing!_ ” he protests, and Cas is still not totally sure what’s going on, here, or even of what they’re trying to convince him, but he is reluctantly amused.

The pair of them settle down, eventually, trailing off into snickers before going quiet.

Then she sighs.

“Anyway. I guess — think of it like this. Sex is like . . . music! It’s true that a lot of people can't listen to the exact same music all the time, no matter how much they like it, but some people _can_ and that’s okay!"

Cas thinks of Dean and his box of cassettes, and wishes Dean had just developed an interest in Top 40 hits instead.

"And some people like music that's not sexy at all,” Devon interjects, mirth reviving, and Ella scowls.

“Yes, fine, Devon, there are many different types of people and they fall at many different places on the music spectrum,” she mumbles. “ _Castiel_ understands my point.”

She gives him a warning look, and he shrugs.

“Perhaps. I appreciate it, at any rate.”

“Castiel is too _nice_ ,” Devon teases, and Ella pat’s Cas’s arm.

“Hey, wanna stay tonight and cuddle? We’ll probably put on _Say Yes to the Dress_ or something, but if you’ve got a comfort fave we’re prepared to negotiate.”

The offer’s tempting, in its own way — bizarrely more so than the one that brought him here in the first place — but Cas is just pathetic enough that sitting three feet away from Dean while he endures an episode _Dr. Sexy_ for the millionth time still sounds _better._

“Thank you. That sounds lovely, and I probably should, but _—_ ” he shakes his head. “I think I’d like to go home.”

It comes out quiet, and possibly a little forlorn, because he’s suddenly being hugged.

“God, your boyfriend’s a dick. No, no, don’t argue with me, I’m never going to meet him so I’m okay making a sweeping judgment. Look how sad he’s making you!”

Cas scowls, although he can’t see anything due to the arm over his eyes.

“Arguably, _I’m_ making me sad.”

“No way,” Devon says from his other side. “Well, you could probably stand to tell him how you actually feel, but other than that — come _on_! Look at those wounded kitten eyes. Paula Abdul called, and your boy is a cold-hearted snake.”

Cas hums.

“I’ve loved him since I was eleven. He has many faults, but a cold heart is not one of them.”

They pull back a little.

“ _Eleven_? Holy shit, wow. How long have you been together? Like, together-together?”

“Uh. A couple months.”

There’s unison swearing.

“Okay. Yeah, wow. I have no idea.” Ella bites her lip. “Although — if you’ve known each other that long — it might be okay, to let him know?”

Cas shakes his head.

“Thank you, but — honestly? I think he knows. Which is why I don’t want to say anything. He wouldn’t have asked unless it was important, and if it’s what he needs . . . I would never deny him.”

Devon and Ella don’t seem to know what to say to that, and it’s just as well.

Mostly, Cas just wishes he knew what to _do_ about it.

Cas gets home before midnight, and Dean manages to be relieved for about five seconds before he realizes his hair is ten times more fucked up than when he left, and his tie is nowhere to be seen.

Oh, and there’s bright red lipstick on his collar.

Dean has to turn away before he embarrasses himself by throwing up on Cas’s shoes or something, because jesus fucking christ he hasn’t felt this sick since the last time he went on an airplane.

“Hey, man,” he manages, taking a deep, quiet breath. “Have a nice time?”

It comes out vaguely accusatory, but Dean can’t quite help himself.

There’s a long pause behind him.

“Yeah,” Cas says eventually. “I suppose.”

And then he pads away down the hall and shuts the bathroom door behind him.

Dean heads to bed while he’s in there, too cowardly to hear any details, and feigns sleep when Cas finishes up and comes in.

And then some unfamiliar scent wafts over, unmistakably cologne, although Dean doesn’t think Cas was wearing any when he left.

Certainly, Dean doesn’t recognize _that_ kind.

Well, he figures numbly. Cas must have had a really nice time, indeed.

He tries and fails to be happy for him.

It doesn’t help that the sigh Cas lets out before he flicks off the lamp sounds pretty damn unhappy, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Past Child Abuse: In reflecting on Dean's drinking habits in high school, Cas recalls Dean coming to see him whenever he got wasted; Cas would eventually put Dean to bed inside. On one occasion, however, Dean falls out of bed and Cas's mother discovers them. She hits Cas and makes a homophobic remark, telling Dean to get out.
> 
> Attempted threesome: A couple tries to pick Cas up at a party. Cas figures he should go along, but once they're in the hotel room and they're kissing him, he finds it is really not what he wants. He ends up talking with them and going home.
> 
> Brief headspace w/potential dub-con feelings: When he goes back to the hotel room with the couple who picks him up, Cas refers to a feeling of being in a situation you realize you don't want to be in. He also experiences internal conflict, feeling that he should be trying to go through with this and creating a good experience for himself and the couple. He does *not* go through with it, though; the couple are the ones who stop and ask if he's okay (it may not be clear, but Cas would have stopped, either way).


	7. say what you want, but it's hard when you're young

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: unhealthy drinking habits, past underage drinking, past child abuse/neglect, past bullying/coercion, some more info in the notes.
> 
> Chapter title from _Young_ \- The Chainsmokers.
> 
> (Another therapy-dense chapter, I apologize.)
> 
> Thank you very much for reading, and I hope everyone has a wonderful week ♡

One of the worst things that ever happened to Dean as a kid, hands down, is something that didn’t actually happen to him at all.

Around the time Dean was a sophomore in high school he discovered, as he was probably always meant to, that he had a special affinity for alcohol, even more than most people.

Besides liking it, Dean was _good_ at drinking; and yeah, even if Bobby and Ellen and D.A.R.E told him cautionary tales, a part of him still felt like more of a man because of that, because he could drink as much straight liquor in one evening as most people would water and _still_ scale a low roof and keep Cas steady on it.

Not that he ever remembered that part too well.

But a thing that _didn’t_ make Dean feel quite so manly?

Seeing Cas’s own mother _hit_ him, because Dean was a reckless fucking _child._ Because he was selfish and self-centered and for all that he’d halfheartedly measured out the consequences of his actions for himself, he forgot that Cas had different shit he might have to deal with, shit that Dean knew had weighed on him ever since his older sister left because she didn’t get a goddamn choice, shit that could leave scars even Dean couldn’t fix.

After Dean had promised to take _care_ of him.

And sure, Dean’s dad had backhanded him a few times and Dean was fine, but that’s different, because he knew when it did happen, he deserved it. Cas, though — Dean watched that thin arm pull back and swing with unexpected force, too fast for him to process in time to do anything about it, and he knew he was never going to forget the sound that followed.

Cas didn’t deserve that. He'd never deserve that, no matter what he did, but it happened anyway, and it was all Dean’s fault.

So Dean resolved to do better. Dean stuck to beer, like Bobby’d always told him he oughta do, and even when he got that buzz, started feeling real good, and looked around the room and noticed something missing — he still didn’t go hassle Cas. There was no way he was going to put him at risk like that again.

Because as bad as Dean sometimes felt over the years, spending all that time up in the treehouse with Cas and leaving Sammy to play with Jo or his other school friends, a part of him gradually got used to the idea that hey, there’s Ellen and Bobby to take care of Sam now, and Dean . . . well, Dean had to take care of Cas. Cas’s family was so crappy to him, infuriatingly so, that Dean knew if he didn’t take care of him, _nobody_ would.

And maybe that wouldn’t be Dean’s problem, except Cas was — he was special. Dean might not have been great with feelings, but he knew he loved Cas a lot, enough that it got scary sometimes, like it did with Sammy — like it had become with Ellen and Bobby and Jo. But Sam and Ellen and Bobby and Jo? They were all good; they all had people taking care of them, looking out for them.

Cas, though; Dean wasn’t dumb. If nobody took care of Cas, then there’d be no reason for him to stay, and the second he could, he’d want to get away. Maybe even head off to Europe, like Anna. And it was frustrating as _hell,_ because not only did Dean have to give Cas reasons to stick around, he _also_ had to counteract all the ways Cas’s family was chasing him off, and he could never be sure if it’d be enough.

But it _had_ to be. Because while sure, the nice, soft, human part of Dean thought Cas deserved to have somebody taking care of him, it was mostly the selfish, needy monster that figured there was no way he could handle it if Cas ever ran off.

And realistically, Dean _knew_ the selfish, needy monster was calling the shots. He knew that for a lot of reasons, but the first time he realized it, he was fourteen years old and his best friend’s sister wasn’t allowed back home for fall break.

Because when Cas told him Anna was going to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving? It was a fucking lightbulb, blinding in his brain, the sudden realization that if Cas’s family, who Dean never liked and who never treated Cas the way he deserved, didn’t want Anna, there was a good chance they didn’t want Cas either. And that thought should have made him sad, should have had him aching for poor Cas, but _nope._ Dean was not a good person, not a bit, and the only thing he managed to come up with was an opportunistic sort of glee, because if _they_ didn’t want Cas — well, then maybe Dean could have him.

Of course, Dean knew he was going to have to work for it, because that was life and nothing good came free. So he did his best, and when he failed, he made damn sure he didn’t make the same mistake twice.

Mostly.

Because now, ever since Cas told Dean what he didn’t even realize he wanted so badly to hear, said _I’m yours_ like it would never not be true, all Dean has managed to do is screw it up for both of them.

Things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be. Dean might not know _what_ they are, but he knows that much, so he drinks. He doesn’t bother with beer, just goes straight for the good stuff, and the worst part about it all is he knows Cas hates it. The whole fucking reason he’s doing it is because he’s paranoid Cas is unhappy and he can’t handle that, can’t handle the stress of knowing he needs to do something but not knowing what, and his dumbass solution is to make it _worse._

Sixteen-year-old him would kick his ass, or try to, would have a million fucking questions as to why Dean can’t just get a grip and fight for the important thing, but sixteen-year-old him didn’t have a clue. Sixteen-year-old him was still wondering how their Dad managed to be wasted beyond belief twenty-four-seven and still survive out there, to do any bounty-hunting or card-sharking or hustling or whatever, because sixteen-year-old him still hadn’t figured out that no, his Dad _wasn’t_ sauced all the time. A hell of a lot of the time, sure, but not all the time.

Nah, his Dad could sober up for a lot of things, if he had to. Seeing his sons, thinking about all the things he’d lost, all the people he’d failed — that wasn’t one of them.

And now, more than ever, Dean realizes why his Dad really drank. He’d always thought it was because of their Mom, because he never got over it; and maybe he did start out, running from his grief, but Dean’s pretty sure what drove him to the finish line was _failure._

And he’s starting to wonder if maybe he’s just like his old man after all, because Dean’s letting Cas down like crazy and he doesn’t know what to do so — so he drinks.

“You seem tired today,” Pamela remarks, come Monday, and Dean shrugs.

“Work.”

“Hm. Yes, you’ve mentioned that. The shop is busy?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you considered hiring someone new?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, me and Benny’ve talked about it. We were worried it wouldn’t keep, you know, might just be a temporary thing, but . . .”

“But you do good work, and it’s starting to pay off,” Pamela finishes, smiling, and yeah, that’s not at all what he was about to say, but it’s pretty nice of her.

“Maybe,” he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Mm.” She nods, studying him. “So, is it just work then? Or is there anything else wearing you out lately?”

Dean frowns at her, and she shrugs.

“We talked about some Cas things — relationship things — the other week. You mentioned you thought he might be angry. I know we discussed a lot of things, but you didn’t have much to say when I saw you last week. Do you feel like you were able to resolve that?”

“Oh. Uh. Well. I don’t — uh.” Dean hesitates. “I don’t think he’s mad anymore.”

“You mean you think his anger has subsided, or you mean you think something else is happening?”

Fuckin’ _Pamela._

He just stares at her, unhappy, and she nods.

“So, one of the things we talked about was affirmation. Have you had any more thoughts about that? Have you done anything differently?”

Dean tries very, very hard not to think about the honest answer to that.

“I’m — not sure that’s, uh, for me. For us. You know?”

She raises her brows.

“I think it’s for _everyone_ to some degree. Human beings, and all that.”

“Right, but — I just — I don’t think we can.” Dean rubs his jaw, sits back. “Or I don’t think _I_ can.”

“Are you having trouble articulating? Thinking of what to say?”

“Yeah, that, too, but — look, I don’t think Cas wants to hear it. So it’s just as well if I can’t figure out how to say it, you know?”

“What makes you think he doesn’t want to hear it?”

_Because I fucking told him and then he ran away and now things are worse than ever._

“A hunch,” he mutters.

“You have good instincts, Dean,” she remarks. “They’ve served you well.”

“Damn straight.”

“They’re not always right, though.”

Dean is quickly starting to think he should never have bothered with therapy in the first place. He could work fewer hours instead of paying for appointments, reduced rate or not, and probably get the same fucking benefit.

“Do you mind if I ask you — why Cas?”

Dean blinks.

“What do you mean, why Cas? Why Cas what?”

She tilts her head.

“Why are you with Cas?”

Dean gapes.

“The _hell_?” he demands, more than a little insulted, even though rationally, he’s pretty sure Pam doesn’t mean anything by it. “’Cause — ‘cause it’s _Cas_.”

Pamela shrugs.

“You didn’t always feel that way, according to you both,” she points out.

And Dean thinks about it — _has_ been thinking about it, if he’s being honest — about how Cas crossed his path and stuck around and how fucking amazing that was, about how desperately Dean was trying to put himself in situations where he could keep Cas safe, could feel like Cas needed him — about how much he hated himself when his temper got the better of him and he was scared he might drive him away — and he wonders.

“I don’t — I don’t think that’s really true,” he says eventually, looking down.

“Oh? Why not?”

He sighs.

“For the same reason I know that — that it’s gotta be Cas, that even if we—” he swallows. “Even if we don’t work out, even if I end up with somebody else, it’s never gonna _be_ someone else, you know? Not the way it’s Cas.”

“So you feel like Cas is 'it' for you.”

“I know he is. There’s just — like I said, it’s gotta be Cas. It’s — jesus, I sound like a fucking chick flick, but he’s _special,_ okay? What we have isn’t — shit, I don’t know. Honestly? It ain’t normal, I don’t think, but I need it like goddamn air. And I think, because of that, because it doesn’t look like plain old storybook romance, because it’s so goddamn _much,_ I didn’t get what was going on there, for a long time. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t. That I wasn’t — that I didn’t know.”

“Alright. So — it’s not that it took you longer to feel that way, it’s that you just didn’t realize it?”

Dean nods, relieved.

“Yeah. And I wouldn’t — I wouldn’t trade it, having him, because it, uh, it meant a lot to me, as a kid. Don’t know what I’d have done without him. But it had to be _Cas._ Couldn’t have been anyone else, and sometimes — sometimes, I wish there _also_ could have been a way for me to — to meet him a little later.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean — like, even without our history, I fucking guarantee you, I could walk into a bar tomorrow, get so drunk I couldn’t see straight, and still set eyes on him for the first time and _know._ But I feel like, because I was a kid, I didn’t realize it. I couldn’t. But I would have, later. If I could have met him in college or something, I think I’d have figured it out pretty quick.”

Pamela smiles.

“That’s some nice conviction.”

“I guess. It is what it is.”

“And yet, in spite of that, you spoke as though it was a possibility, that you wouldn’t work out.”

Dean swallows, stares hard at the sideseam of his jeans.

“Yeah, well. I’m tellin’ you how _I_ feel. I think — I think it’s different for Cas.”

“Different?” she echoes, frowning.

“Me and Cas — we’re not, uh. We’re not wired the same way. And I — I — the way he is, it’s — I wouldn’t change a thing. But he is different. And I’ve always known, that while maybe I could meet him for the first time tomorrow and know that he was probably it for me, if Cas — if he hadn’t met me, then, under those exact circumstances, he’d never look twice at me, you know?”

“I’m not sure I do,” she says slowly.

He huffs. For someone who talks like she knows everything, she’s not always good at the obvious.

“I guess — what I’m saying is, for Cas? I’m a habit. And he’s not — he’s not great, when it comes to breaking habits. And he’s got so few people, even though he’s so — you know. He could have a lot more, if he went out looking. But since he doesn’t, I’m a lot of what he’s got, and I think he feels like he has to hang on to it, even when it’s not really what he wants.”

And somehow, articulating that to Pamela, saying it out loud, even if he’d kind of been getting there for a while now — it scares the shit out of Dean. He’s being dead honest here, in a way he doesn’t like to be, often can’t, and something a lot like panic is stirring in his gut.

“Alright,” Pamela says, shaking him from the thought. “So — you’re saying that your significance to Cas has less to do with you and more to do with your history?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And you think this relationship could end because of that?”

Dean takes a deep breath and refuses to think about things ending, because he’s dying here, honest-to-god, and it’s still better than if he had to let go altogether. He can’t imagine that, doesn’t want to, wants to focus on the good, on _Cas,_ on all the reasons why this is worth working for, even though Dean’s efforts are as like to fuck it up as hold it together.

“Actually — sorry, Pam, I just — can we not? I don’t, uh — I can’t talk about that. Not right now.”

Pamela hesitates, forehead creased, but nods.

“Of course, Dean. Another time.” She clears her throat. “Well, then. Cas is very special, to you. And you think you’d recognize that, even without your history. But you _do_ have history. Tell me about that. Tell me about some good times, some times you think made your friendship stronger.”

“Uh.” Dean eyes the wall behind her, a little caught off guard. “Why?”

“I think — I sense that you’re feeling a little insecure. That’s normal. There’s been a shift in your dynamic, in how you define your relationship, and now that things have settled down, you’re going to be more conscious of what’s changed, of what new pressures exist. And sometimes, we can feel more confident, or more even-footed, when we think about what made a relationship strong in the first place.”

“Oh. Okay. That, uh. Makes sense, I guess.”

“I’m not looking for anything specific, here. This is just for you, Dean.”

Dean’s not sure if it will help, but he thinks about it anyway, and it’s not really difficult. A lot comes to mind — there were a lot of good times, even when things weren’t good, overall. But what sticks out to him the most is Pamela asking about times that made their friendship stronger, and those — there’ve been a lot of them, too.

And mostly, Dean finds himself thinking about all the times Cas was there for him, when he didn’t even think to expect it.

“Bobby — he’s got an auto shop, over in Lawrence. I already knew a lot about cars, since my Dad used to be a mechanic, but Bobby taught me even more, and I’d even help him out from time to time. Anyway, everybody knew that about me, and for a little while, there was this kid in town — Alastair, real bad news — and for whatever reason, he set his sights on me.”

“What happened?”

“I mostly managed to shake him off, but he and his buddies, they were persistent, and they figured out if they got to Sam, they got to me, and—” He shakes his head. “Long story short, I ended up in a parking lot in the middle of the night, about to help steal a car ‘cause I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Yeah, well. Anyway, uh. So. I didn’t — I didn’t tell Cas about any of this. I figured it’d upset him, and then he’d wanna do something about it, when it was my own damn problem, and honestly, I was just glad they were leaving him alone. But there I am, like two in the fucking morning, and I’m pissed as hell but I don’t see any way out of it, and suddenly — there he is.”

“Cas?”

“Yep. Dude just shows up out of the blue, appears under one of the streetlights like a creepy-ass angel of vengeance and about gives everybody a heart attack, and he just — looks at me. And he goes, “Hello, Dean,” and everybody’s like, “What the fuck is he doing here?” and Cas just calmly walks over and says, “Dean and I are going home, now.” And I’m furious, of course, ‘cause now Cas could get in trouble and they’re probably gonna kick both our asses, and then the fucker just — he _smiles_ at me, one of those tiny ones that’s mostly in the eyes and way too smug for his own good, and Alastair just busts up laughing — and then we hear the sirens.”

“Cas called the police.”

“Yeah. Alastair loses it, I swear he was about to pull a knife and start slicing at us, but Cas grabs my arm and we start running and I have no idea where the fuck we’re going, but I guess he figured out a route, and a place to hide, because next thing I know we’re in these woods and there’s this little shed and we just hang out there for a bit, and then we go home. And he doesn’t — he doesn’t really say anything. I’m kinda — shaken, I guess, and embarrassed as hell, but Cas just lets me stew, and then when we get to his house, he waits, and so I give him a hug, like always, and I’m thinkin’, this is it, he’s gotta have some questions, hell, _I_ have some questions, but he just goes, “Good night, Dean,” and that’s that.”

“Wow. That’s intense. I’m sorry you were in that situation, either one of you.”

“Could have been worse,” Dean shrugs, and she nods.

“But didn’t the boy give you trouble, after that?”

Dean cracks a smile.

“Eh, that’s the best part. Made me feel like a fuckin’ idiot, but I still love it. So, uh, Alastair comes to find us at lunch the next day, all ready to make good on his threats. He’s all, “You know what this means, don’t you, Dean?” and I’ve been up all night, worrying about this, but Cas just looks him dead in the eye and says, “Dean’s very good with cars, as you know.” And Alastair’s baffled and annoyed, opens his mouth, but Cas keeps talking. “Jody Mills is also a close friend of his family’s. That is, Deputy Jody Mills.””

“Ah,” Pamela says, smiling.

“Yup. Should have seen Alastair’s face,” Dean chuckles. “He was so fucking pissed, but he knew when he was beat. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I can. I gather that you often have trouble remembering there are people you can call on for help.” She gives him a meaningful look, and he pulls a face.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” he mutters.

“Right. Well, it sounds like that’s a good memory, in the end. As you were clearly aware, Cas risked a lot, coming for you. I definitely see how that strengthened your friendship.”

Dean nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, he’s — he was always like that. Totally left field, you’d think he was off in his own world, but then he’d just — like, there was another time, in this bar, this chick was hittin’ on me like crazy, and I figured, hey, why not, but then her _boyfriend_ shows up and he’s pissed as hell at _me,_ starts threatening me and shit, and Cas — jesus, I didn’t even think he was paying attention to us. But suddenly he’s right there, and you know what he tells the guy?”

“What?”

“He goes, “It should be noted that your girlfriend makes her own decisions, and honestly, I don’t blame her for this one.””

And Dean laughs, because it’s funny every time he thinks of it, of the look on the dude’s face, flabbergasted and outraged and comically unable to respond. And Cas just stood there, utterly deadpan and cool as you please, and Dean fucking _lost_ it, which of course didn’t help.

They definitely got thrown out of the bar that night.

Pamela’s smiling, expression warm.

“Well-put. What else?”

Dean sighs, rubbing his jaw, and then his smile fades a little, because the next one is a little less funny.

It's important, though.

“So . . . when Sam was like — seven? He and I got into it over something he wanted to do, and I thought I made myself clear and he accepted that, or whatever, but next thing I knew, the kid ran off on me. And I just — I felt _awful._ Just frustrated and closed-in, and back then I was still — I was panicking, ‘cause I thought Bobby was gonna get mad at me like my Dad would have. Anyway, Cas and I searched high and low for him, and we eventually found him in the park a couple neighborhoods over, one we never went to, but — shit, I was so upset, and as soon as we found him I guess — I couldn’t handle it, and I stormed off.”

Dean rubs the back of his neck, guilty.

“You were very young yourself, and I think you felt more responsibility than was fair. That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable reaction for a child.”

“Still. I left Sam and Cas there. I shouldn’t have. I _knew_ I shouldn’t have, and it made me feel worse. But Cas — Cas came to find me later. And he — and this was eleven-year-old Cas, okay, he didn’t do so good on his own, absolutely _hated_ finding his own way back without me, but he took Sam home and then he wandered around looking for me. And he wasn’t even mad. Just sat next to me for a while, until I finally manned up and took him home.” Dean shakes his head. “Didn’t say a word about it. I still felt like shit, of course, but — I don’t know. I was really glad, that he was there, that he did that — that he didn’t try to make me feel bad or anything.”

“It sounds like he was a good friend. Like you were good friends to each other.”

Dean cracks a smile.

“Yeah. Yeah, I — I tried. And Cas did, too, even though I think I confused the hell out of him, sometimes, and I know I could be — I’d get pissed for no reason, or I’d get uncomfortable, or I’d be bossy, but even though Cas was actually — you wouldn’t think it, but he was kind of a sensitive kid — he just took it all in stride.” Dean knows he’s rambling, but he’s got a thread here, and he can’t seem to stop pulling on it. “’Cause he’s like that, you know? Even if he doesn’t understand, or if he’s not happy with it, he’s — he’s adaptable. He’ll endure it. I’ve seen him — I’d get to thinking he was all just soft and nice, ‘cause he’d be like that, since nothing was going on, and then something would happen, and it’d just — you’d realize all over again that _shit,_ he’s a force to be reckoned with. I mean, this one time, when we were still pretty damn young, my Dad came around, and his timing sucked, because Sam had been having some trouble with some kids at school and I didn’t know until that exact day, when he comes home with a black eye, but Dad’s there and he sees it and _boy is_ he pissed at me, you know, I’m supposed to be lookin’ after the kid, after all, and so he starts toward me and I’m like, yeah, I’m about to get my ass kicked, and Cas — Cas just—”

He cuts off, swallowing, because he had a lot of complicated feelings about this when it happened, and maybe he never quite resolved them. It was and is kind of a big deal, to Dean.

“Cas stepped in front of me. My Dad’s — he wasn’t a small guy, you know? And Cas was still — just little. And my Dad was comin’ at me, hand raised, but Cas just — stood in front of me and stared him down. He was a scrawny-ass kid, I tell you what, but he still didn’t even flinch.”

Pamela nods, clearly torn between intrigue and disapproval.

“And?”

Dean shrugs.

“Guess my Dad was surprised, too. Froze up, just long enough Bobby came in and — well, sent him to sleep in the Impala.” Dean snorts, then sighs. “I was scared shitless, for that moment. Too surprised to do anything, but I was sure he was gonna — that Cas — God. And I was maybe — a little ashamed, too. It’s bad enough for Cas to see me like that, but to feel like he had to—”

Dean waves a hand, cringing a little, and Pamela frowns.

“You shouldn’t feel bad about that. This is another case where neither one of you should have had to deal with that, but since you did, it’s worth noting that Cas relied on you to make him feel safe a lot of the time, such as when you walked him home. It makes sense that he would want to return the favor. You were important to each other. People want to protect the things that are important to them. That reciprocity — I can’t love the circumstances, but you should take heart in it.”

Dean nods slowly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess. And I did. I mean, I _do,_ because that — _all_ of that, all those times, it was — Cas — Cas ain’t a fighter,” he blurts out, shaking his head. “Not really. I mean, he can fight — dude’s damn scrappy. I mean, shit, even when he’s got bad odds, he just — goes for it. It’s crazy. But, uh. It’s not in him, mostly. He doesn’t really wanna hurt anyone or get hurt, y’know? Doesn’t even like conflict — which is a big surprise, given how often the fucker starts shit—”

Pamela clears her throat.

“Right. Yeah. So — he’s not a fighter, doesn’t really like it, but — he’ll fight for me. And that — that’s not nothing, right? Whatever it is, when I’m at the end of my rope, he picks up the slack, and that — jesus. That’s a lot.”

And it really is, because thinking about it, talking about it — Dean’s throat feels a little funny, and it’s making his voice go kinda hoarse, and Pamela’s giving him soft, understanding eyes, and maybe therapy’s finally turned him into a fucking girl.

Because now Dean’s kind of wondering, if Cas was always there to be the rest, whenever Dean wasn’t enough — what about when Dean’s not enough for _Cas_? What the hell is he supposed to do then?

“Thank you for sharing that with me, Dean,” Pamela says, and Dean quickly pushes the thought aside. “You did really well today. I know it’s not easy, and sometimes I think you wonder why you bother coming to see me — yes, I can tell — but for what it’s worth, I do think you’re making progress.”

Dean nods, uncertain what to say.

“That said — I want to apologize, if you felt like I put pressure on you to do too much, the other week. I know that talking things through is especially hard for you — and that you have good reasons for that — and if I made you feel like you had to try and force yourself when you weren’t comfortable, or when you didn’t really know what to say, I’m very sorry.”

“What?”

“When we talked about affirmation. About its importance in a relationship. I worry that I told you what you should do, but perhaps I didn’t give due consideration to helping you figure out _how_ to do it.”

“Oh. Uh. It’s — it’s okay, I don’t think — it wasn’t really anything you said, so much as — you know, like I told you, Cas and me just aren’t . . . suited. To that,” he adds hastily, and she nods.

“I know you feel that way. But I also know that you spoke, very openly, about some things that meant a lot to you. Overall, about a quality of _Cas’s_ that means a lot to you. And I do sincerely think that, if there was a way you could communicate things like that to Cas, it would mean a lot to him, in turn.”

Dean blinks, swallows.

“Kinda heavy talk for over dinner.”

She cracks a smile.

“True. Maybe wait for that one to come up organically. Still . . . I didn’t mean to give you the impression that there was a script, somewhere out there, for how to talk to your partner about those things. Whatever other couples might say to each other — it’s okay if none of that works for you. It’s okay to find your own way of speaking — to make it up as you go along. The important thing is to remember why you’re doing it. To remember what you love about him. And however you end up expressing it — that’s up to you, and it’s better to take your time figuring it out then to make yourself uncomfortable. But I think, if you can, it would be worth it to try again.”

And Dean knows Pamela doesn’t get it, doesn’t know what a complete disaster it was, last time, but — a part of him can’t help but cling to the idea that there’s still something he can even do, to affect how things ultimately shake out.

Because maybe Cassie had the right idea, and Cas didn’t want to hear any of that — after all, he knows he’s stupid hot — but the whole reason Cas is even with him in the first place is because they were best friends from the start, and that meant something to Cas.

So maybe the problem’s not with — with talking. Maybe the problem’s with what Dean said. Maybe it’s really just a question of figuring out what unnecessary shit to keep to himself, and what shit will remind Cas of how much he’s already invested in Dean and how maybe it’s a good idea to stick with it.

Maybe.

“Alright. I guess I could — I could do that.”

“Don’t pressure yourself. Sacrificing all your own comfort never makes a relationship better. But if a moment comes when you think that, beyond making Cas feel good, _you_ would feel good, sharing something like that — then don’t be afraid to talk about it. I think he’ll be more than happy to listen. He might even share something, himself.”

“I don’t give him a lot to work with, but sure,” Dean jokes, and Pamela gives him a look.

“Well,” she says eventually. “With any luck, he’ll prove you wrong.”

And it’s all Dean can do not to laugh at that, because when has Dean ever been that lucky?

Never.

Not for the first time, Cas wishes Pamela was allowed to tell him what she and Dean talked about in therapy.

Dean comes home Monday night in a strange mood, a little startled to find Cas has gone out to the grocery store and brought back a few things, namely some canned chicken and Chicken Helper to cobble together for dinner since he knew Dean wouldn’t have time between work and therapy.

There’s also one of Missouri’s pies in the fridge, but Cas will wait for him to figure it out.

Dean stands in the kitchen archway, just staring at Cas while he gives the suspiciously appetizing mixture a few final stirs, and Cas supposes he’s right to be surprised. It wouldn’t be the first time Cas has done it, but Dean’s been brooding and drinking and generally closed off for a few days, now, and he can no doubt tell Cas is pissed about it.

Still. Meg and Tracy were right. Even Devon and Ella said a few things, things Cas has had time to think about, and as much as he might hate it, might feel vaguely like he’s in some kind of distorted nightmare — Cas understands what he has to do.

This is their new normal. And as per usual, he’s not the one making the rules.

And so, he must adapt.

Dean wanders into the kitchen slowly, comes to stand next to the stove, inspecting dinner with interested eyes.

“Looks good,” he says quietly.

“It should. It came with instructions. I’m very good at following instructions.”

The amount of time Dean spends laughing at that is completely unnecessary, in Cas’s opinion.

Once he quiets down, he peers into the pan again.

“Noodles look a little soggy.”

“As God intended,” Cas responds duly, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, alright. They taste good. They look post-digestion, but they do taste pretty good.”

“I think it’s about ready, if you want to grab plates.” Cas clears his throat. “Where should we eat?”

“Uh.” Dean hesitates. “Here’s fine. I mean, at the table.”

Cas tries not to interpret that with hopeful bias; the table is where conversation happens, and Dean hasn’t seemed very keen on talking to him for days, now.

“Alright.”

Dean grabs plates and cutlery while Cas fetches a hot pad for the pan, and they make quick work of arranging the table.

Of course, Dean makes one last trip after Cas is seated, over to the liquor cabinet, and it’s all Cas can do to remind himself, _new normal._

“Want anything?”

“No thanks.” It’s strange how Cas quite enjoys drinking himself, sometimes, but never when _Dean’s_ enjoying it too much.

“Okay.”

Dean comes back with a small glass instead of a bottle, which Cas supposes he ought to take heart in.

They eat in silence for a little while, Dean taking small, measured sips of his drink in between. He’s the one who breaks the silence.

“Ha. Remember when Ellen was teachin’ me to cook?”

Cas gives him a surprised look.

“Yes. We were very young.”

“Like, twelve. It was so stupid,” he says, shaking his head. “I think I’d got it in my head that if I learned to cook better, I might could get my Dad to take us with him next time.”

Cas nods politely, because this makes perfect sense, and wishes a thousand pounds of spite on John Winchester’s grave.

“Anyway, you didn’t know fuck-all about any of it, since you weren’t allowed in the kitchen when it wasn’t dinner time.”

Cas remembered that, of course; when he was seven or eight, one of his brothers told him it was because he was too little and he’d combust if he went near the stove. _Better hope you don’t stay that small forever, Cassie._

Dean was pretty pissed when he heard about this, not long after they became friends. Prickly as he still was, he'd tugged Cas inside Ellen and Bobby’s kitchen and, despite Cas’s protests, climbed right up on top of the stove to show him.

 _It’ll burn ya if it’s on, though,_ he warned, and while Cas wasn’t quite so afraid, after that, he still avoided it.

“I recall.”

“Yeah. And, uh. You — it must've been boring as hell, but you showed up for all the lessons.”

It wasn’t boring; even if Cas didn’t just generally enjoy being around Dean, it was all new information to him, and besides — Dean was nice enough to let Cas help with the little things, so in a way, he learned, too.

“I enjoyed it,” Cas tells him, in case he doesn’t know, and Dean chuckles.

“Don’t know why. You were so patient with me, though. I’d ask you to get me utensils or pull stuff out of the fridge, and you’d do it, no questions asked. And I was trying to keep track of everything she said, so even though you’d heard it like, five minutes ago, I’d keep turnin' to you and explaining the steps, and you’d listen, all patient, like it was important.” He laughs. “Like I totally knew what I was talking about.”

Cas tilts his head.

“Well, it was. It helped me understand as much as it helped you, I’m sure. And you knew more than I did.”

Dean shrugs.

“Maybe. Anyway. Made it a lot, uh, easier. More fun. I’m glad we did that. Thanks,” he adds quietly, and then he turns his focus back to his food.

It takes Cas a little longer, because he’s curious as to why Dean’s talking about that — why he’s thanking Cas, instead of Ellen.

Of course, Dean just had an appointment with Pamela. Cas suspects they must have talked about Bobby and Ellen as surrogate parents, a feat which he commends her on; that issue has always been tangled up enough in the John issue that it’s one Dean mostly won’t talk about, even if he has plenty of good things to say about them.

Still, in dwelling on such things aloud, he has Cas thinking about them, too, and it’s clear Dean’s twelve-year-old self missed something important.

“I — it was a lot of fun for me, too.” He coughs. “I learned a lot.”

“Ellen’s a good teacher,” Dean agrees, and Cas hesitates.

“Yes, but — you know, I didn’t mind you re-explaining.” He attempts to keep his voice even, but he can feel it quiet as he gets to the last part. “I always — I liked it best, when you told me things.”

Dean’s fork pauses, buried in a heap of noodles like some crooked flagpole, and he meets Cas’s eyes, searching.

And Cas looks back, mouth dry, because this feels sort of — it feels like a _moment,_ like one of the ones they haven’t had in a long time—

And then Dean smirks.

“Yeah? Well, things sure have changed, haven’t they? Can’t keep track of how often I hear, ‘shut up, De—’”

“Shut up, Dean,” Cas says, right on cue, and Dean laughs through his next few bites of dinner.

He does not, however, refill his glass, and Cas can’t help but feel as though he’s won something.

“How are you, today?”

Cas squints.

“That doesn’t sound like a casual question.”

Pamela shakes her head, slowly.

“It’s not. We’ve been working on something, you and I, and if you’re up for it — I think this next part might be a little rough, but I’d like to go ahead and see if we can figure it out.”

He sighs, supposes it’s as good a day as any.

“Alright. My safeword is Palpatine.”

Pamela snorts before she can catch herself.

“Okay. Well, then, if things get too intense for you, you know what to do.”

Cas nods graciously.

“Proceed.”

“So . . . we’ve established that you don’t really talk about your family.”

“Like I said, we aren’t close. I don’t know why I would,” he adds, unsure why she keeps coming back to this.

“You still lived at home until you were eighteen, though, right?”

“Arguably, I spent more time at Dean’s.”

She tilts her head.

“Dean’s? Not the Singer-Harvelle’s?”

Cas just gives her a tired look.

“I think we’ve already established the main attraction there, as much as I love them all.”

“Fair enough. Let me ask you this; do you feel like John’s prolonged absences after Dean was ten meant he didn’t have much influence on Dean?”

He stares.

“No? Only a crazy person — or Dean — would try and say that.”

“Mhm. Well, Cas, none of us can escape where we come from.” She subjects him to a meaningful look. “Even once we’ve left.”

He opens his mouth, shuts it. He understands what she’s saying — certainly, it applies in Dean’s case — but—

“Most people — they live with the things their parents said to them. The things their parents did. The — the kind of atmosphere they created at home.”

“Yes?”

“Mine didn’t, though. I allow that it was strange, but — my parents hardly spoke to me. As long as I did as I was told, I was also mostly ignored. Beyond superficial lectures, I struggle to remember much about our relationship, because we didn’t _have_ one. As little as John came to town, every time he did, there was _something,_ something I have no doubt Dean remembers to this day. But for me, it’s — there’s not a lot to remember. My father was never there, my mother was happy to overlook me, and I spent as much time as possible away. If anything, I’m fortunate in that I _don’t_ have the same kind of baggage other people do.”

Pamela nods.

“That’s . . . an interesting way to look at it.”

He scowls.

“What?”

“Well, I know you do remember a few things. You told me, once, about a promise Dean made to take care of you. In doing so, you talked a little about the time your sister was kicked out.”

He narrows his eyes.

“I did. That was something that happened to her, though; not to me. As you said, I lived there until I was eighteen.”

“You did,” Pamela agrees. “But if I recall, your mother said something to you, that day.”

“Yes.”

“’Let this be a lesson to you.’”

“What about it?”

“What do you think she meant by it?”

“It’s obvious what she meant by it,” he counters, baffled. “Step out of line, and the same will happen to you.”

“And you still don’t know what your sister did, that your mother reacted so strongly to.”

“I don’t know that it matters.”

“Mhm. How old were you?

“Thirteen.”

“And since you did leave, you haven’t returned?”

Cas can’t help the amused look.

“I wouldn’t, even if I was welcome. Which I’m most certainly _not._ ” He gestures to his general person, grinning.

She looks disturbed, if anything.

“So it isn’t just that you _choose_ not go home, because you’re not close to your family. You’re actually not welcome back? Explicitly?”

“Uh. Well, no. That’s not surprising. It was inevitable.”

“Inevitable?”

“Yes. Even if I hadn’t had my, uh, college awakening, I knew that it would happen eventually.”

“What made you think that?”

“My mother was very traditional,” he explains slowly. “And well before I got to know myself, so to speak, I did know I loved Dean. As soon as I figured out what my vague desire to be with him forever meant, I knew that if it were to ever happen or, more likely, if it were to ever be discovered — I would be out.”

“And when would you say you realized that?”

“Uh. I was — fifteen, perhaps? Although, ever since my mother threw Anna out, I knew there could be rules I didn’t know about, that I could break.”

“So . . . you spent five years of your adolescence knowing that if you did the wrong thing, whatever it was, you might not be welcome in your own home. That your place there, despite being a child, was contingent on your ability to follow rules. Rules you couldn’t fully understand.”

Cas takes a minute to absorb this.

“I — don’t — I don’t think that was that unusual.”

“First of all, psychological impact is a separate thing from ubiquity. Second of all, while that may happen with more frequency than it should, it _is_ unusual. And that doesn’t make you weird — but it will have influenced you, in some way. There’s no escaping that.”

Not sure what to say — what he _can_ say — he stays silent.

She takes a breath.

“Now, the last time we talked, I asked you about how your family dealt with physical affection.”

“And I told you they didn’t.”

“Yes. But one thing in particular stood out to me; you said your mother hugged you every day after school, until she abruptly stopped.”

“Yes. Though I can’t tell you why she felt like she had to do it in the first place.”

“And you said she scolded you, if you tried to hug her.”

Cas shrugs.

“She didn’t want me wrinkling her clothes. Appearances were very important to her — which I was lectured on _frequently,_ by the way. Anyway, she said I was too old for that. I imagine that’s why she stopped.

“I see.” Pamela pauses, considering. “How old were you?”

“Seven or eight, I think.”

“That’s very young. As we’ve discussed, people need affection no matter how old they are — but especially during their childhood, and from their parents, that’s something they _need._ ”

Cas arches a brow.

“We also discussed that I need less than most people. Which makes sense, if you think about it. It’s probably hereditary.”

“Could be,” she muses, noncommittal, and glances down at her notepad; and for the first time today, Cas realizes it’s not blank. “Now — you’ve indicated, on several occasions besides today, that the older you got, the more time you spent with Dean.”

“That’s correct,” he says, beginning to feel a little nervous about where she’s going with all of this.

“Your mother wasn’t bothered by that?”

“No — well. By the time we graduated, not really. As long as I maintained my grades and didn’t embarrass her — she didn’t seem to care what I was doing or where I went. When Dean first moved there, she was — more strict, about my time. But I think, for her, she ultimately preferred not having to deal with me to being able to exert control over me.”

A sad look flickers across Pamela’s face, before it returns to neutral.

“Control. Earlier, you mentioned superficial lectures.”

“Yes. Those remained. Other than that, though . . .”

“She mostly ignored you.”

“Fortunately.”

“Mm.” She glances down. “So, you also told me about the only time Dean ever said he loved you, using those words.”

“I look forward to hearing how these things are all related,” he says dryly, although he feels distinctly anxious about it.

Pamela can tell, if the look she gives him is anything to go by.

“This was a big moment for you, in terms of Dean,” she continues smoothly. “But what stood out to me was your conviction that your sister was the only person in the world who loved you, and you were struggling with the fact that she left.”

“Of course I was.”

“You loved her a lot.”

“Yes, well. I understand that’s why she felt like she had to leave. As it turned out, I had Dean, but Anna — she needed more than her little brother.”

Pamela gives him a sharp look.

“Yes. We talked about that last time. She was looking for a place to belong.”

“Yes.”

“That must have been hard for you, at that age. Did you feel like that meant that place didn’t include you?”

He tilts his head.

“Well, it doesn’t.”

“Explain.”

“She stayed in Europe for a reason. Anna loves me, very much, but she doesn’t really need me to be an active part of her life.”

“Do you feel like you need her?”

He opens his mouth.

“Well. I’m an adult, now, so my needs are fairly limited. I’d have to say no.”

“But?”

He shrugs, embarrassed.

“But — it would be nice. If she moved back. She, um. When I overdosed, she came back and took care of me. That was nice. Obviously, I’d never ask her to, but I wish she was closer.”

“That’s very understandable,” Pamela says, nodding. “You could mention it, though. If nothing else, people like to know they’re wanted.”

“Not always. I think mostly it would make her feel guilty. She’d be — uncomfortable, afterward, and for no good reason.”

Pamela nods again, but there’s an intent look in her eye, like she’s maybe nodding at something else.

“Okay. Well. Thank you for being honest with me. I know you didn’t really see the point of that, but I appreciate your cooperation, nonetheless.”

Cas inclines his head.

“May I ask what the point of that _was_?”

“Of course. In the end, this is for your sake, after all.” She smiles briefly, then sets her notepad down, studying him with serious eyes. “The thing is, Castiel, when we’re children, we form our fundamental understanding of cause and effect, as it pertains to how we interact with others. And most of what we learn is not explicitly told to us.”

“Okay.”

“Something I’ve noticed about you, whether talking about past or present, is the language you use to talk about your relationships. You talk about rules, about boundaries — and when you do, you make it clear that it’s up to other people to set them, so you can follow. You talk about being _allowed_ things, about things being _given_ to you; and even if you speak fondly, you say it like it’s a sacrifice for the other person, instead of mutually beneficial.” She pauses. “You’ve come right out and said that you think you’re too needy. You clearly think your feelings and desires are both strange and excessive — things to be ashamed of.”

“Well — they are.”

“And you’re not open to reevaluating that.”

“I learned a long time ago—” he starts, and the look she gives him is so bizarrely satisified, he stops short.

“Yes, I think you did.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Pamela holds his gaze.

“It means that you can _tell_ me the absence of parental attention and interaction you experienced meant a lack of opportunity to affect you, but everything else you tell me says differently. Which, honestly? Is about what I’d expect.”

“That tells _me_ surprisingly little,” he mumbles, and she nods.

“I’m going to tell you what I think, based on what you’ve told me. And remember that, professional or not, I’m not an authority, here. I can be wrong, and you’re allowed to think I’m wrong. You’re allowed to disagree.”

“Or safeword.”

“Or safeword,” she agrees easily. “But one of the reasons you come to see me, is so that I can help you think about things, and talk about things, and offer some additional perspective when you might need it. And I think you might need it.”

“Okay.” He resists the sudden urge to bring his feet up off the floor and hug his knees to his chest, to curl up like a child. He doesn’t even want to _know_ what Pamela would say about that. “Let’s hear it.”

“I think what your mother did, or didn’t do, was extremely damaging.” He opens his mouth, and she holds up a hand. “Please let me finish.”

“Fine,” he mumbles.

“Your mother made gestures of affection, on her terms and schedule, but made it clear she didn’t get anything out of it; so that on the few occasions she did provide it, you felt conscious of being a burden. Additionally, she made you feel like she had specific motives for doing so, whether you understood them or not.” She pauses, but he can tell she’s not finished. “And when you tried to ask your mother for affection you did need, you were not only denied, but chastised. And made to feel like there was something wrong with you for wanting it.”

Cas’s skin is crawling, even though this doesn’t matter, and hasn’t for a long time.

“Something like that.”

“You understand that that’s a big deal to a child, right? That whatever you may have consciously thought about it, you would have internalized it, in deep and lasting ways?”

“I understand that my mother had no particular attachment to me. I’m not even sure she was capable of love, in the way most people understand it. But I made my peace with it.”

“Well, I think you _may_ have made peace with respect to your mother. But I don’t think you’ve made peace with what she taught you. And I don’t think you’ve ever unlearned it.”

He remains quiet, considering.

“And what do you think that was?”

“I think she taught you that connection is a bad thing. That wanting it, wanting affection, is bad. I think she taught you that asking for it is even worse, to be afraid of doing so. To be afraid that if you do, you will be denied it, and possibly even trigger a reshaping of boundaries that leaves you with even less than you started out. I think she made you think _you_ were the one who wasn’t normal, that if people did give you what you needed, or what you wanted, they had their own reasons for doing so, reasons separate from you. And by doing that, I think she taught you to vastly underestimate your potential value to others; to go into any relationship assuming you always had less to offer the other person, and that because your needs weren’t normal, that whatever you received in return was both conditional and given reluctantly.

“I think it’s also significant that your mother neglected you more and more, the older you got, but when she did pay attention to you, it was to be critical. Once again, whether you talk about past or present, you seem particularly sensitive to anger or irritation from the people you care about; I think your mother’s handling of you, as an adolescent, taught you to correlate reproval with emotional distance and apathy toward you, which is why you’re so desperate to avoid provoking it.”

“No one likes people being mad at them,” Cas mumbles, and is startled to find his feet have made it onto the sofa, legs criss-cross and hands clutching his knees. He quickly straightens out.

“But you’re afraid of it, Castiel. You sometimes go to unusual — or unhealthy — lengths to avoid it.”

He can’t argue, so he doesn’t, just hunches in on himself and stares at the floor.

“Now — you say you mostly don’t crave affection and touch, so that was not a motivator for seeking out sex.”

“It wasn’t,” he says quickly, relieved to have something he’s sure of.

“I believe that. I’m not so sure about the first part, though. I do think you don’t want it from strangers. But in two cases, you’ve admitted to wanting more from people close to you. You wish Dean was affectionate all the time. You wish your sister would come home.”

He shrugs, skin at once cold and strangely itchy, and he can’t seem to stop his fingers from picking at the clothing covering it.

“In both cases, though, you’ve expressed a fear of rejection. You seem to think your sister will put more distance between you if she thinks you expect something from her. In Dean’s case — you told me you weren’t afraid of or bothered by rejection for sex, usually, but you _are_ afraid of him rejecting you, because of what he might really be rejecting. Because of what he might think you’re actually asking for, because he might think it’s too much.”

“Because it is.”

“I don’t think so. I think you were made to feel that way, a long time ago, to look at the world around you through that lens. But I think it’s time to understand that you’re not. That sometimes your sister, who also had that done to her, needs to hear that she’s loved and wanted at home. That your partner needs to hear that he’s loved, that the things he can give you are meaningful to you.”

Cas grits his teeth, fingers curling.

“Alright, fine. I allow that Anna — Anna has also suffered, is probably as fucked up as I am. I’ll call her tomorrow and tell her, if you want me to. But Dean and I — we have a long history together, and regardless of what you think I learned from my mother, I learned a _lot_ from Dean, as well.”

Pamela hesitates, and he watches, hoping she’ll take the bait and point out that he shouldn’t be calling Anna for _her_ sake.

She doesn’t.

“I know. I also think you learned a lot from Dean. But I also don’t think you quite realize what.”

“Really. As much time as I’ve spent thinking about it, you think I don’t know.” He shakes his head, slouching back into the sofa. “Then what _do_ you think I learned from Dean?”

She thinks for a moment, clearly unfazed by his aggression.

He resents it.

“I think Dean was the first person you trusted to love you, to keep you safe and take care of you. As much as you loved your sister, you didn’t expect or try to rely on her for that, because on some level, you’d come to assume everyone would put their own needs and wants above yours. But then came Dean, and he promised you a lot, with words and otherwise, and you believed in that.”

“He made a compelling argument,” Cas offers, sarcastic, though it’s true.

She nods.

“That is something unique about Dean — the way he loves, with every part of himself; the way he gives in silent ways. But I think it can be a problem, especially for you, because Dean rarely gives you words, and without words, without it being made clear, you don’t know what to expect. And you’ve been taught to assume the minimum.”

“I didn’t feel that way with Dean,” Cas argues. “Like you said — I believed in him. I believed he would take care of me.”

“Yes. You had a lot of faith, in Dean. A lot of trust. Even without words.”

“I did.”

“And I think that’s what he taught you,” she says quietly. “That words weren’t necessary. That you could get by without them. That you didn’t need to talk, and you didn’t need him to speak, either, because you could understand anyway.”

“I can,” Cas insists, and she bites her lip.

“I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think you think that’s true. I think you struggle — I think you _suffer —_ because Dean won’t tell you, and you don’t know how to ask. I think it was wonderful that he made you feel that loved and secure, growing up, but it was still a problem that he did it through actions, because it meant that the first time he betrayed your faith, your trust, and did something that really hurt you — I think it left you foundering and uncertain, and I don’t think you’ve ever recovered.”

“What are you talking about?” he asks, although he’s pretty sure he knows.

“Charlie’s birthday party. When he tried to get you to sleep with Meg.”

Cas scowls.

“I know that wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know how I felt.”

She looks at him.

“But Dean always protected you, always gave you what you needed, even when you didn’t know to ask for it. I think some part of you trusted that he understood you well enough not to _accidentally_ hurt you, either, whether he knew how you felt or not. And I think for you, that was the first time you realized that you _couldn’t_ trust that. And whether it was his fault or not, whether it was fair to expect or not, I think it made you afraid and insecure.”

Cas closes his eyes.

“What is the point of all this?” he whispers. “Why are we _doing_ this? What is this going to help?”

“So you feel that I’m right.”

“Of course you’re right. Of fucking course you’re right, that’s why I’m here, because I’m an idiot and I don’t know how to be a person and I apparently don’t even understand myself, but you know what? It doesn’t fucking matter, Pamela. Dean is who he is and he’s going to do what he’s going to do, whether it hurts me or not, and no amount of me understanding myself or telling him shit is going to _change_ that.”

“I disagree,” she says calmly, carefully, and yes, he’s getting hysterical, but if she knows as much as she thinks she does, she should have fucking predicted that.

And that’s another thing. Perhaps Pamela’s right about this, perhaps she hoarded all the stupid little puzzle pieces he’s somehow managed to leave her across all their conversations and then put the whole mess together, but she _doesn’t_ know as much as she thinks she does, does she? She doesn’t know the most important fucking thing at all.

“Well, you’re wrong. Dean and I understand each other very well. If I feel insecure, I have good reason to be. If Dean hurts me, it’s because whatever it is is important enough for him to do it anyway. Because you know what, Pamela? Dean asked me for an open relationship when I came back from New York — during which time, by the way, I’m pretty sure he fucked around with someone else. And I said yes, because what the fuck else was I going to say? And you can just _guess_ which one of us is off fucking other people and which one of us couldn’t even when they tried. I’m fairly certain I don’t need to tell you.”

And _there —_ finally, at long last, Pamela looks surprised. He can see the moment the shock wears off and her brain starts working, trying to figure out what to say, and he doesn’t give her the chance.

“So you know what? Coming here, seeing you — it’s pointless. I know how things are. I’ve always known how things are. Dean and I have already said everything we need to say, and now all there is for me to do is grow up and accept that this is how things are going to be, that I’m going to say yes, I’m _always_ going to say yes, and in the end, I’m probably going to lose him anyway. So thank you _so_ much for all your help, but please consider all my future appointments fucking _canceled._ I don’t need them.”

And yes, it’s petty and childish and just plain _rude —_ but Cas storms out and slams the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unhealthy drinking habits/past underage drinking: Dean reflects on his high school drinking habits; when he would get wasted, he'd go climb onto Cas's roof to visit him. In the present, he considers his father's struggles with alcohol, and acknowledges that he is drinking too much at this point and it isn't really great for him or his relationship, yet he can't seem to help himself.
> 
> Past child abuse/neglect:  
> 1) (John) Dean recalls (non-specifically) being backhanded by his father, and expresses the feeling that it was deserved (obviously, no child deserves that). He later shares a story with Pamela in which John starts toward him with a hand raised, angry at Dean for letting Sam get hurt, and Cas steps in front of him; Bobby intervenes before anyone is hurt.
> 
> 2) (Naomi) In a flashback, Dean recalls the incident with Naomi hitting Cas. Later, an entire therapy session is devoted to Pamela discussing Cas's mother's neglectful and abusive treatment of him as a child, as well as his living in an environment where he always had to be afraid of losing his place. She explores the effect this had on Cas and how he behaves in his adult relationships. Some things that are addressed here are a pattern of indifference and neglect interspersed with hypercritical behavior, and making a child feel like they were wrong to ask for/want affection.
> 
> Past Bullying/Coercion: In therapy, Dean shares a memory of Alastair setting his sights on him, and ultimately threatening Sam in order to get Dean to participate in a car theft. Cas thwarts this, and points out Dean's connection to Jody (a deputy at the time) in order to discourage future efforts.  
> Sam coming home from school with a black eye is also mentioned.


	8. forgive me for my frail love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warnings: explicit sexual content (tags for this scene in the notes, scene marked with *** at the beginning and end and is perfectly skippable!), referenced past Cas/others (Dean reflecting on the fact that Cas has had many partners), unhealthy coping mechanisms (Dean and alcohol), references to past character death (John), implied/referenced liver failure (John), implied/referenced child abuse, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Chapter title from _Frail Love_ \- Cloves.
> 
> First, I apologize for the delay. My break ended and my schedule is terrible. Second, I apologize for half this chapter being porn. I will hopefully have another chapter up soon.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading, everyone, and for sharing your thoughts about things ♡

Cas comes back from therapy in a really bad mood.

Like, really bad. Probably the worst Dean’s seen him in in a long time. Because sure, things are weird with Cas, right now, but the moment Cas gets back and makes eye contact with Dean, he outright _glares._

And then he stalks away to the bedroom, where he stays for no more than forty-five seconds before promptly reemerging in running clothes.

Without another word, he’s off.

And yeah, okay, if Dean’s not crazy, Cas is pissed at him, more so than usual, but mostly Dean’s instincts are telling him Cas is just _upset,_ in general; so the moment Cas is out the door, Dean gets started on the chocolate muffins.

The hunch pays off. Cas goes on a long, long run, just like he always does when he’s trying to figure out a problem or burn off his anger, and Dean’s just taken the muffins out to cool by the time he gets back.

“Hey, Cas,” he says, trying and probably failing for nonchalant when the irresistible chocolatey aroma lures Cas into the kitchen. “Muffins are still cooling, but dinner’s ready whenever you are.”

He gestures vaguely to Cas’s sweat-drenched self, the clothes sticking to his body, and Cas tilts his head.

And then he marches forward and swipes a muffin off the rack, _daring_ Dean with his eyes, and takes a bite before turning around and heading for the bathroom, muffin still in hand.

It kinda pisses Dean off, in that hot, itchy way, the kind of pissed off that gives him a strange urge to stomp after Cas, to get in his face and demand to know why he’s being such an ass, to get his hands on him so he can’t keep walking away.

He considers this for a few seconds, tries to calm down and remind himself that now, more than ever, Cas needs his space — and then he takes off after him.

“What the hell, man?”

Cas gives him a disinterested, sidelong glance, peeling off the wet, clinging t-shirt.

“What do you want, Dean?”

“I wanna know who pissed in your goddamn cheerios. You’re being a dick,” he informs him, though it’s a struggle not to get distracted by all the shiny, bare skin on display.

Cas looks thoughtful, even as he shucks the sweatpants and boxers and tosses them both into the hamper, lean and well-muscled legs tensing as he moves around the bathroom.

“I don’t think it’s any of your business, Dean.”

Dean scowls, inching closer, doing his best to look intimidating instead of dry-mouthed and really, really interested in what Cas looks like naked.

Like, for Christ’s sake. They’re _fighting._ And if they weren’t, they’d be sitting on opposite sides of the room, tense silence and unidentifiable sort-of-conflict hanging in the air between them.

“It is when you take it out on me,” he insists, barely clinging to his focus.

Cas just looks at him, unimpressed, except—

“I’m not. You would know if I was taking it out on you.”

And yep, Cas can keep as straight a face as he wants, but it’s always all in the eyes, with him, and Dean knows that look, spent a month doing everything he could think of to put it there.

Dean takes a chance and closes the distance, staring him down the way he knows Cas hates. Cas has resented that few inches of height difference from the moment it started appearing, and Dean _literally_ looking down on him? Pisses him off to no end.

“Well, it kinda feels like you are.”

Cas’s eyes narrow.

“Well, it _kinda_ feels like you’re the one who’s trying to start something.”

“Am not. All I did was make you muffins.”

Cas tilts his head.

“So, what? I’m supposed to be grateful?”

Dean swallows, hard, and Cas’s eyes flicker down to his throat.

“Actually, yeah, a thank-you would be fucking nice,” he says, even though it never occurred to him to expect one; even though the only reason he made the muffins in the first place was to make Cas feel better.

In their own fucked-up way, though, Dean thinks he’s gonna end up doing that anyway.

Cas searches his face, then abruptly turns and pulls open the shower curtain.

For a moment, Dean is disappointed.

And then Cas speaks.

“Well, then,” he starts, even. “If you want a thank-you, you’re going to have to fucking come and get it.”

***

Dean’s out of his clothes in five seconds flat, shoving the curtain aside. Cas isn’t even trying to pretend he’s washing up, just standing there, arms crossed and eyes dark, and Dean pushes him up against the shower wall, breathing hot against his mouth.

They stare at each other, going a little cross-eyed from the proximity, until Cas hooks an arm around his neck and drags him into a hard kiss, teeth clacking and noses bumping as the water pelts Dean’s side. Dean just presses in closer, chest to chest, palms braced against the tile, and when he pulls back to take a breath, Cas just follows, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. Dean lets his hands slide down the wall, seizes Cas’s hips and drags them forward against his own, pushing his thigh between Cas’s and groaning when he finds him half-hard already.

“Somebody’s — all worked up—" he pants, and Cas just buries his fingers in Dean’s hair, yanking his head to the side and practically savaging Dean’s mouth in his efforts to kiss him harder (or shut him up, more likely).

Dean’s not really surprised, though. Cas is always like this, always fierce, even when he’s gentle, and always so fucking _responsive_. Dean told him so once, awestruck by the way Cas had twisted and trembled beneath him, pinned down and spread out while Dean fucked him with his tongue, and Cas had just folded an arm over his eyes, sobbed out, “It’s you — it’s just you—" before coming apart at the first touch of Dean’s hand on his cock.

And sure, Dean enjoyed that, felt that little thrill in his ego, that surge in an ambition centered totally around making Cas lose his mind with pleasure — but that’s just it; he was _supposed_ to. Cas has had literally countless lovers over the years, and Dean isn’t ungrateful enough to pretend all that experience isn’t always there. Cas knows exactly what to do and say to drive Dean or anybody else wild, and he enjoys it. End of the day? There’s nothing special about this, about Dean, or about them and what they do together.

And because of that, he knows that Cas is just responsive, period. Cas took to sex like a duck to water, and the only reason he’s not that picky and he has so much of it — the only reason he can ignore Dean one moment and then hop on board as soon as Dean makes his interest clear — is because he _loves_ it. Cas loves sex for the sake of sex, and as much as Dean and probably every other person Cas has been with might consider Cas’s body a fucking miracle, Cas is the one who enjoys that miracle most of all.

Still, that doesn’t mean Dean can’t enjoy it, too.

Dean jerks his head free, ignoring Cas’s irritated grunt and holding him back when he tries to follow.

“Stay,” he commands, winking, and earns a look of such rage it’s a good thing he’s got a plan, or else they could probably look forward to a nice evening in the ER because Cas finally lost it and ended up repeatedly dashing Dean’s head against the shower wall.

Before Cas can act on his anger, Dean slides to his knees, tightly grasping Cas’s hips and glancing back up at him.

“Watch your head,” he says, and takes him into his mouth.

Cas, as always, disregards him, and half a second later there’s a loud thunk as his head falls back against the tile. _Too_ fucking responsive, sometimes.

Dean sighs internally, loosening his grip to stroke gently up Cas’s sides as he sucks him. He laves unhurriedly over the head and surrounds, easily coaxing him to full hardness even as he tries to give Cas time. Cas is so wound up, already; he’s never been good at being angry, as often as it seems to happen these days. He never knows what to do with it, torn between lashing out and self-destructing, and Dean always aches to see him suffer.

After all, Dean’s pretty much the same way.

“I thought — I thought I was supposed to be thanking you,” Cas huffs, and Dean hollows his cheeks, sliding off as slowly as possible as Cas instinctively twitches forward, moaning.

“Really?” he asks, once his mouth is free. “Thought I was responsible for getting that ‘thank-you’ myself.”

He seizes Cas’s hips again, sinking back down around his length, abrupt and clearly unexpected, until his nose brushes Cas’s stomach.

The sound Cas makes is as unreal as it is beautiful, as all of them are. Dean swallows around him, wonders if Cas knows how good it feels for Dean to hear it, what every last little noise he makes does to him.

That, Dean’s never said, but yeah, Cas probably knows. He’s probably been told a hundred times, probably budgets his sounds carefully to get exactly what he wants from any given partner, and luckily for him, that doesn’t change a thing.

Dean is happy to give.

“Fuck,” Cas swears, twining his hands in Dean’s hair, obviously struggling not to thrust forward. They both know Dean can keep him there — as strong as Cas is, Dean has all the leverage — but Cas probably doesn’t want to give Dean the satisfaction of his desperation.

Dean wants it, though, so he clutches Cas’s hips and drags him forward, forces himself to relax his throat and swallows again.

Cas cries out, tugging hard at Dean’s hair, and Dean draws off and does it again, and again, until Cas doesn’t need his grasping hands, doesn’t need any encouragement at all, just helplessly fucks Dean’s mouth, curled forward and clinging.

Dean’s struggling to breathe, eyes burning with tears and drool running down his jaw and chin as much as the actual water is, but he can’t help it; when he has Cas like this, wrecked and needing and trusting Dean to provide, he feels like a God.

And then Cas’s breath starts hitching, rhythm stuttering and half-lidded eyes suddenly shutting tight—

So Dean pulls off, sitting back and enjoying Cas’s startled anguish for a moment before he gets to his feet, legs trembling, and wipes his mouth.

Cas sags against the wall, expression tight with misery and resentment.

“You’re kidding,” he whispers, blue eyes a little watery, and Dean can’t help himself. He crowds in close, kissing Cas more sweetly than the situation calls for, and then steps away.

“You better shower. I don’t want my thank-you dirty.”

Cas squints, and then reaches for the shampoo with a huff.

“You say that _now,_ ” he mutters, and Dean leaves before he can kiss him again, before he steals the bottle right out of Cas’s hands and washes his hair and soaps him down and forgets why he’s there in the first place.

Cas reappears about three minutes later, towel-less and dripping wet and still very, very hard. He spares a brief glance at Dean, comfortably relaxed against the pillows, before he stalks over and throws the blanket away. Then he climbs into Dean’s lap and grinds down without a word.

“ _Yes,_ ” he hisses out, closing his eyes and rocking his hips while Dean watches him and tries to pretend he’s not just as affected, not one perfect little motion away from rolling Cas onto his back and rutting against his hip until they both come.

“You, uh, you taking charge of the thank-you, then?”

“Someone has to,” Cas grits out. “I don’t — understand your — objection to — _oh, ah —_ to shower sex.”

Dean arches a little, rolling up to meet him with a groan.

“It’s complicated as _hell,_ ” he grunts. “Way too stressful to enjoy. _Fuck._ Not that this doesn’t feel good, but—"

Cas leans over, reaching for the nightstand drawer, and Dean can’t resist palming the arch of his spine and watching the shiver run through it.

“If you’d give it a chance,” Cas mutters, hand clumsily feeling around in the drawer, “I think you’d enjoy yourself just fine.”

“Shut up, Cas.” It’s not Dean’s fault Cas barely seems to notice discomfort once sex is involved. And it certainly doesn’t mean Dean is _fussy._

“Make me,” he grunts, fumbling the bottle and a condom out and accepting Dean’s help pulling himself upright again. He drops the items on Dean’s chest once he’s stable, giving Dean a pointed look.

“Make yourself. Aren’t you supposed to thanking me? Don’t know why I should have to do all the work.”

Cas’s jaw clenches.

“And if you _want_ it,” he says evenly, like he’s not straddling Dean’s hips, still subtly rocking against him, “Aren’t you supposed to be _taking_ it?”

Dean debates holding his ground, feigning unconcern and demanding Cas do it, let Dean watch him open himself up until he’s ready to sink down and ride it out — but that’s not what he wants and Cas knows it.

Grudgingly, Dean snatches up the lube bottle and uncaps it, carelessly squeezing some onto his fingers and rubbing them together.

‘Scoot up a little,” he mutters, using his clean hand to try and guide Cas forward. Cas allows it, but he gives the hand a dark, pointed look, and Dean takes care not to get too pushy. Cas is already pissed off tonight and if Dean pushes, he fully expects to get shoved right back.

That's fine, though; Dean doesn't mind being careful.

Cas shuffles up the bed, leaning forward and bracing himself on his elbows, and Dean instinctively lifts his head to kiss him before he reaches around, gently slipping his finger between Cas’s cheeks and circling.

Cas huffs, burying his face in Dean’s neck.

“Do you need a fucking map?” he bites out, rocking back. “Inside, Dean.”

“So bitchy,” Dean mutters. “Should’ve had dinner first.”

“For fuck’s sake, De— _fuck._ ” Dean unceremoniously pushes the tip of his index finger in, right up to the knuckle, and Cas trembles.

“You asked,” he retorts, but Cas just shakes his head.

“More,” he says quietly, and Dean wriggles his finger in further, slicking up Cas’s walls and rubbing gently as he feels him out.

“How’s that?” he whispers, nipping at Cas’s jaw. “Good?”

Cas hesitates, and Dean can practically read his mind, hear him debating whether or not to be a dick about this.

But then he just lets his forehead drop, pushing his hips back against Dean’s lightly probing finger.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “It’s good, Dean.”

Dean just nods, languidly stroking away and listening to Cas breathe against him.

“I — Dean—" he eventually starts, and then Dean realizes he’s sort of zoned out, forgotten the way Cas’s hands have fisted in the sheets, forgotten his own achingly hard dick, forgotten why they’re there altogether.

He withdraws the finger, just long enough to uncurl a second one and slip it back in alongside the first, thrusting the digits in with a little more force than before. Cas arches with a quiet noise, and Dean brings his other arm up, smoothing a palm up and down the beautiful curve of Cas’s back.

“Still good?”

Cas nods, drawing in a breath and slowly exhaling. He’s still rocking back onto Dean’s fingers, undemanding but wanting nonetheless.

“Yes. But — you could go faster.”

Dean bites back a laugh at the polite reproach in there.

“You’re kinda tight,” he points out, carefully scissoring his fingers, and Cas flinches a little at the resistance.

“Then _do_ something about it.”

“I _am_ —"

“ _Faster,_ ” Cas grits out, and as much as Dean enjoys the sensation of Cas riding his fingers, enjoys the way they glide in and out, that slick, warm promise of what’s to come — Cas is angry tonight, and he needs to vent, and he can’t do that if Dean insists on taking his time.

So Dean works a little harder, putting a little more focus into spreading his fingers and stretching Cas’s hole, and tries to make each motion count.

But Cas _is_ tight. And Dean normally doesn’t care one way or the other (lie — there’s something about tucking two fingers into Cas right off the bat, knowing he’s loose and open and so close to ready because he’s already had Dean and it hasn’t been long enough for his body to forget it) — but right now, it’s a relief. It’s been a while for the two of them, and he’s not sure what he’d do if he’d pressed inside and found the evidence of someone else having been there.

And no, that doesn’t mean they haven’t — Dean knows there was someone, probably at least two someones, at Meg’s party last week — but they’re not here now, and Dean can pretend they never were.

“More,” Cas mumbles, and Dean nods.

“Yeah. Was just about to.” He draws his fingers out partway, untucking the third and pushing it in, thrusting all of them in nice and deep.

“ _Dean,_ ” Cas breathes, bucking a little.

“You can touch yourself,” Dean says, and Cas pushes up slightly at that, eyes narrowed.

“I’m aware. I don’t need your permission.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Well, if you really don’t want to, you could always touch _me_ instead,” he snarks, mostly sarcastic, but Cas just sighs and shifts his weight, reaching between them to grasp Dean’s cock and start stroking.

Dean may or may not whimper. He’s been so preoccupied with getting _Cas_ ready, his own arousal sort of faded into the background, but _shit,_ it’s definitely still there.

“M-maybe not,” he gasps, involuntarily rolling his hips. “Shit, that’s — I gotta focus, buddy—"

“You _asked,_ ” Cas reminds him, rounding his thumb over the head, and Dean swears.

“ _Dude._ ”

Cas huffs and draws his hand away.

“Fine. My arms are getting tired, anyway.”

“You wanna lie down?” Dean offers kindly, and then shoves his fingers forward, curling the tips and relishing the strangled sound Cas makes against his shoulder when his elbows buckle.

“ _No._ I want you to — _fuck_ —" Dean idly rubs at the little gland, although it’s a struggle to ignore his erection now that he’s been reminded and Cas is making all those goddamn wonderful sounds again. Dean can see the increasing tension in his body, feel it in the way Cas is pressing back on his fingers with more urgency, more _need_ in every sharp movement.

“Think you’re almost ready,” he whispers, spreading his fingers a little, and Cas moans.

“You _think?_ ” Despite the words, Cas sounds so wrecked Dean can’t help but shut his eyes and thrust against air, all desire to linger lost.

He wiggles his pinky in alongside the rest, and Cas makes a small, desperate noise before he shifts over and clumsily presses his mouth to Dean.

Dean kisses him back, arm aching with effort as he slides his fingers in and out, and after a minute Cas breaks away, sitting up and flinching at the change in angle.

“Ready,” he breathes out, pushing Dean’s arm away. “Where’d you—"

Dean wordlessly hands him a condom and the lube, hips twitching in anticipation as Cas rolls on the condom and squeezes a generous amount of lube into his hands. Seconds later, Cas is slicking him up and _God damn it,_ even that feels fucking incredible, and then—

“ _Fuck,_ yes,” Cas groans, sinking down on Dean’s cock in one sharp drop, and Dean jerks up, crying out.

“Damn it, Cas,” he pants, hands scrabbling for purchase on Cas’s hips, eager for touch, for even more contact beyond the sheer perfection that is being buried deep inside Cas’s tight, soft heat. “Warn a guy.”

“No,” Cas retorts, lifting up and slamming back down, moaning as Dean’s hands slip down to his thighs and squeeze. “There are muffins waiting.”

Dean chokes out a laugh, even as Cas rises up and drops down again in another round of insane, delicious friction.

“They're — _fuck_ — they're probably already cold, Cas,” he points out, albeit shakily. "But sure, if you're in that big of a hurry . . ."

Cas rolls his eyes, then splays his hands over Dean’s chest and starts riding him like their lives depend on it.

And maybe they do, because if for some reason Cas stopped right now, Dean thinks he might actually die.

“Yeah — yeah, fuck, that’s good, Cas, that’s so good,” he praises him, and Cas just grunts, shutting his eyes and throwing his whole weight into every downstroke, taking Dean as deep as he can, and leaking all over Dean’s stomach as his cock bounces against it. It’s hot as hell, and even though Cas seems to have a pretty fucking awesome strategy going, Dean can’t resist planting his feet on the mattress and thrusting up to meet him, triggering a sharp, magnificent cry. Cas freezes, clenching tight around Dean, and for a few moments, all he does is circle his hips, grinding in small motions while Dean repeatedly bucks up against him.

“C’mon,” Dean urges him. “You got this.”

Cas slowly opens his eyes, taking a deep breath, and then he draws himself up, and they meet each other halfway once more.

They move like that, Cas’s palms slipping on Dean’s sweat-slick chest a little, pace wild and frenzied and still not enough, and Dean thanks God for Cas’s runner’s thighs because not once does he let up, just keeps lifting himself, so high his rim tugs at the head of Dean’s cock, threatens to slip off, and then he’s gliding back down while Dean pushes up and it’s so, _so_ fucking good, always so fucking good.

It feels like both no time and forever before Cas is tensing up, strokes shortening as he starts to bow over Dean’s chest, tremors running through his arms.

“Some — thank you,” Dean gasps, still jerking his hips up in rhythm, even when Cas fails to do his part. “Gonna come — first — aren’t you? No — fucking — stamina—"

“ _Dean,_ ” Cas grunts, panting heavily, and attempts to slow. Dean doesn’t want that though, is pretty fucking excited to see Cas lose it, and he grips Cas’s hips and shoves up, hard, and then he does it again, holding Cas in place so he doesn’t lose his balance as Dean lifts him. “Oh — oh — fuck, I — Dean —"

And then Dean takes a hand off his hip, only to wrap it around Cas’s cock and start stroking, and that’s all she wrote.

“ _Dean!”_ Cas moans, just shy of being a yell, and then he’s jerking in Dean’s hand and making a mess of his chest and Dean nearly loses it right then, too.

And Dean’s tempted to let him finish, to lay back and admire the way Cas’s head is thrown back, eyes shut tight, the way his muscles have gone tense and his fingers have abandoned their purchase on Dean’s chest in favor of tangling in his own goddamn hair, lost to his pleasure—

But instead he seizes the opportunity, rolling them over while Cas is still peaking and pushes Cas’s thighs apart, holding them in place as he draws out and then slams back into the hot, slick clutch of his body.

“Oh, my God,” he moans, moving to plant one elbow beside Cas’s head and bracing himself as he relentlessly fucks into him. And Christ, the _sound_ Cas makes at the new angle, still twitching all around him as he rides out his orgasm, and Dean’s so fucking hard, and Cas feels so fucking good, all wrapped around him, Dean’s kind of amazed he managed to hold out. “You are so — fucking — welcome—"

And even though Cas is just barely coming down, still trembling all over and breathing in sharp, uneven gasps, he clumsily brings his arms around Dean’s neck, leaving a soft chuckle against his shoulder. And then he starts rocking his hips up, feeble little movements as he limply holds on, and that unexpectedly sweet encouragement is all Dean needs, desperately drawing out and pushing back in, Cas squeezing tightly all around him until a couple strokes later, he’s coming hard, spilling into the condom and burying his face in Cas’s hair as he tries not to sob from sensation.

Cas just gently rubs his back, still moving his hips and clenching around him, drawing it out.

“Fuck,” Dean mumbles, the only speech he's really capable of, and he feels Cas nod.

“Indeed.”

It takes Dean a few minutes to find the strength to lift up, away from Cas.

Cas has his eyes closed, but his expression is relaxed and open, and Dean wouldn’t be surprised if he was falling asleep.

“Uh. Clean up, and then dinner in bed?” he proposes cautiously.

“And muffins,” Cas mumbles.

Dean exhales.

“And muffins.”

He strips off the condom, wipes them down with a t-shirt from the floor, and then reluctantly gets out of bed to go fetch dinner.

  
  


***

  
  


“Do you wanna talk about it?” Dean asks a while later, once they’ve made it back to bed with dinner and muffins.

Cas is so surprised a chunk of muffin falls right out of his mouth, and Dean quickly scoops it off the sheet before it can do that thing chocolate always does, which is smear across five different other things even though you swear you never even moved.

Cas plucks it right back out of his hand and pops it in his mouth.

“No. Thank you,” he adds, but it comes out kind of curt, and while it’s disappointing, Dean figures he’s not much good for talking to, anyway.

Cas probably prefers the weird sort of not-quite-angry sex they had earlier, besides.

“Okay.”

Cas finishes chewing, and hesitates before his next bite.

“Thanks for the muffins.”

“Sure.” Dean clears his throat, catches himself thinking of Pamela’s advice, which happens a lot lately. “I, uh. I appreciate that you’re — here. To cook for and stuff. Always liked it more, ‘cause you — y’know. Liked it.”

Cas’s chewing slows, and he gives Dean an odd look.

“I do,” he says, once he’s swallowed, and Dean’s not sure if he’s confused or perturbed or both. “Thank you.”

“Yep.”

God, this affirmation thing is fucking hard.

But he’s gotta _try,_ right? Sure, it didn’t go so great the first time, but if Dean thinks about it, now that he’s mostly not cringing every time he does, Pamela didn’t know how things were between them. Him and Cas aren’t really doing the traditional relationship, because Cas isn’t really traditional, and so _of course_ he doesn’t want a bunch of weird romantic bullshit getting shoved at him, any more than he’s ever been a touchy-feely kind of guy.

But the biggest thing — honestly, probably Dean’s biggest _draw,_ for Cas — is that they’ve been best friends for more than fifteen years. So as long as Dean focuses all his efforts on _that_ part of their relationship . . .

Maybe it’s not such bad advice after all.

“So,” he starts. “Work’s been crazy, I kinda feel like I need a break.”

Cas hums, starting in on another muffin.

“Going out with Benny again?”

“What? Oh, uh, no. No, he’s busy with a new — girl — thing — so I just thought — been a while since we went and did anything fun. Maybe Friday or Saturday?”

He keeps his tone casual, tries not to look too much like he’s checking for Cas’s reaction.

Cas sighs.

“I would, but I’m well behind target for my deadline. Billie actually had to e-mail me.”

“Oh. That’s not good.”

He shrugs.

“I didn’t realize how long it’d been until she told me.”

“What, she think you were dead or something?”

Taking another bite of muffin — and seriously, that has to be like, his _fifth —_ Cas shakes his head.

“I asked. She said she’d know if I was dead.”

“Fuckin’ creepy-ass agents,” Dean mutters, although Billie doesn’t creep him out half as bad as Jessica-the-Mafia-Cheerleader.

“Indeed.”

Cas sets the muffin plate — now empty, though Dean’s not about to point out that he didn’t even get one — on the nightstand and snuggles down into the comforter.

“Teeth,” Dean says quickly.

“One night won’t kill me.”

“It might kill _me,_ ” Dean argues.

“Sleep facing the other way, then,” Cas mumbles back lazily, eyes closing. “It’s not like you have to kiss me or anything.”

“No way in hell am I doing _anything_ with you if you went to bed without brushing.”

Cas is quiet for a moment, and then he starts laughing, a strange laugh Dean’s not accustomed to, which just makes it _weirder,_ because Dean’s accustomed to pretty much everything about Cas.

“Withholding sex is considerably less effective in a relationship like ours.”

And yeah, bucket of ice, right down Dean’s fucking back. No, it’s not news, and no, it doesn’t change anything, but for the first time Dean realizes neither one of them have talked about that since the conversation where it actually happened, and having Cas refer to it, as a _joke,_ no less—

“Guess not,” he mutters, and swings his legs over the bedside, bizarrely shaky. “Gonna take the dishes back and clean up. Enjoy your beauty sleep.”

He scrubs in silence, can’t even muster a smile when he hears Cas eventually get up and head back into the bathroom, and by the time the dishes are in the rack and the countertops are nice and sparkly, he still feels like utter shit.

And _then,_ because this is Dean’s life and all bad days are fucking obligated to end in _worse,_ he chances a glance at the calendar on the wall.

To the proof that this thing with Cas is totally and completely fucking with his head, because he’s been so caught up in it, he actually managed to forget.

The January before Dean’s Dad died, nearly a year after Dean graduated from college, John came to see him.

The visits had gotten fewer once Dean finished high school, but that made sense. As a college kid, Dean could be just about anywhere and John didn’t want to drive around campus, couldn’t even be sure of a place to crash once he found him.

Still, he’d show up randomly, sometimes, call Dean and ask him where he was, or tell Dean where he was, like there was no question Dean would drop what he was doing and go.

Which, of course, there wasn’t.

That time was no different, even though Dean didn’t know about his Dad’s liver problems — no one did — and didn’t even think for a moment this could be the last time he saw him.

He met his dad at some random bar in town — Dad never liked going to Ellen’s, even once Dean was old enough — and braced himself for a lecture.

Dean hadn’t seen his dad since before Sam went off to Stanford, all the way out in fucking _California,_ and while Dean might have had some opinions about that, might have shared them in less than constructive ways, he and Sam worked it out.

Dad, on the other hand, was going to have a lot _more_ opinions about it, and since Sam wasn’t here to fight with and it was Dean’s responsibility, anyway . . .

But surprisingly, John wasn’t that angry. Had a lot to say, sure — but he wasn’t that angry.

“California,” he scoffed, shaking his head. “Kid always thought he was better than us.”

Dean listened, jaw tight, because while no, maybe Dean didn’t go to Stanford, he still went to college. It was a thing people did, especially now.

“You should have made him stay put. He’s not gonna make it out there, no family to speak of. Ain’t where he belongs.”

Dean hesitated.

“Hard to make Sam do anything.”

John just shook his head.

“Not that you ever tried. You were always too soft on him, you and Bobby both. Treated him like a little princess long past when it was time for him to grow up. I mean, look at him. Playin’ intellectual’s bad enough, but the boy’s a damn hippie. Shoulda heard what he was saying when I went up to see him. I know _I_ didn’t raise him like that,” he added, throwing an accusing stare Dean’s way, and Dean just bit his tongue, because it was better that way, always had been.

Still . . .

“You went to see him?”

“Somebody had to check on him.”

Which was just fucking _unfair._ Dean called the kid twice a week, would do it more, except Sammy literally capped him at two because, _I’m fine, Dean, but if I want to pass my classes, I can’t_ _be on the phone with my_ mom _all the time._

(Such a bitch. Dean has no idea who taught him to talk back like that).

But hey, maybe John genuinely forgot that there were these cool things called telephones that you could use to get in touch with people to see how they were doing. Dean could believe that.

Anyway, Dean wasn’t too surprised that he came second on John’s wayward son tour. If John was even going to bother with both of them, he was going to bother with Sam first.

“So, got your little degree now.”

“Last year,” Dean said. John didn’t show up for graduation, obviously. Dean didn’t invite him, but he’s pretty sure Bobby tried for something.

“You workin’ now?”

“Yeah. Doin’ some mechanic stuff—"

John snorted.

“Didn’t need a damn degree for that.”

Dean gripped his beer, willing himself calm. It always felt like the longer John was away, the less Dean got used to it, even though by that point, it was hardly the worst visit they’d had.

Dean was just too sensitive, was what.

“Yeah, well. Friend of mine, Benny — he and I are workin’ on plans for our own shop.”

John gave him an appraising look.

“Where are you gonna get the money for that?”

“Well, it’ll be a while, gotta save up, but I think we should be able to get a loan.”

Bobby and Ellen were going to give him one, too, but Dean wasn’t about to say that. John didn’t approve of getting charity, approved even less of anybody spoiling his sons into weak dependence.

“Hm. Well, we’ll see.”

Dean’s phone went off, then, and he ignored it, because you damn well better give John your full attention when he’s talking — but John nodded toward the sound.

“Go ahead. I know how kids are, these days. Always gotta be plugged in,” he said, making a face. “Things sure have changed.”

Dean hesitated for a second, and John scowled.

“Well, come on. Don’t keep two people waiting.”

“Right. Sorry, sir.”

John nodded, signaling the server for another drink, and Dean slipped his phone out.

And then he couldn’t help but smile, because it was Cas, getting back to him about the show they were going to try that weekend. Hanging out on weekends was a thing they were gradually getting back into, and Dean was relishing the returning sense of normalcy.

 _I’ll watch it,_ _h_ _owever, you should know that despite the ‘historical’ genre tag, reviews lead me to believe there are issues with dubious accuracy._

Classic Cas, so fucking picky. He would watch it anyway, that pinched, disapproving look on his face, and then Dean would go, “Spit it out,” and Cas would say, “It’s fine,” and then eventually he’d start ranting about it while Dean pretended to be annoyed even though it was pretty hilarious and, yeah, kind of educational.

“Girlfriend?” John asked. There was a smirk on his face when Dean looked up, and he froze.

For a split second, he wanted to lie.

But John could spot a liar blindfolded, earmuffed, and ten miles away, pretty much, so Dean steeled himself and determined to be as nonchalantly vague as possible.

“What? Nah, just Cas. Bitchin’ about somethin’ or other.”

“Fussy kid,” John said, an edge to his tone Dean didn’t like but couldn’t identify. “Surprised to see he’s still around.”

Dean tensed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, unable to stop himself, and his Dad shrugged.

“Figured you mighta finally shook him off. Heard he nearly died.”

The bottom of Dean’s stomach dropped right out, at that. Dean mostly — he tried not to think about it, not since Anna had finally gone back to Europe and he and Cas were seeing each other at least once a week again, Cas all glowing and healthy and whatever other bullshit indicated that a person wasn’t about to fucking die on you.

“Don’t—" he started, even though telling his Dad what to do was a huge fucking no-no, could turn a situation from ‘okay’ to ‘heads rolling’ in about two seconds flat. But Dean couldn’t help it; this just — he couldn’t do this, especially with his dad talking like it would have been a good thing. “Don’t — don’t talk about him, okay?”

John raised his brows.

“Well, _hell._ I know that look.”

“What look?”

His dad let out a bitter laugh.

“Same look I see in the mirror every damn day. So, what’d you do, Dean?”

“The hell do you mean?” Dean demanded, frantic, even though he knew he was being disrespectful and the last thing he wanted was a fight.

“Your little friend nearly died, and that’s _guilt_ if I ever saw it. That’s the look of somebody who knows it’s their own damn fault.”

Dean went cold.

“Shut up,” he snapped, and John narrowed his eyes, but so fucking _what._ Dean would still rather get into an all out brawl here, have his Dad beat him into a bloody fucking pulp, then hear any of _this._ “You don’t — no. Just no. You don’t get to come in here and talk to me about fucking up.”

John folded his arms, leaned back, and maybe the way he didn’t jump up and start shouting should have been a clue that something about this visit was different, but Dean was too pissed to give it a second thought.

And yeah, John looked mad, but mostly he just looked — he looked _disappointed_ in Dean.

“Yeah. Yeah, you think that, don’t you, Dean? Every fuckin’ time I come to town, you give me this look, like I didn’t do a very good job, and I know you believe that. But y’know what, son? You’re still a child. You haven’t got a damn clue, how hard it is to be a man, what that even means. But you’ll see. You’ll see you’re not much good to anyone, either.” He shook his head. “Might’ve always looked like your mother, but end of the day, you’re just like your old man. And the best thing I ever did for you boys — for _anybody_ I loved? Was leave you the hell alone.”

And then Dean did something he’d never done before, would have said he never could. He got out of that booth, turned his back on his father, and walked out.

Because for all the man’s faults, his dad knew people, and he was the only person who’d ever really seen Dean for what he was. And this time, when he started in on it, he wasn’t that drunk and he wasn’t that angry, and he knew _exactly_ what he was talking about.

And Dean — after everything his Dad had put him through, after everything he’d stood up straight and dealt with, like the man he was supposed to be — Dean couldn’t handle it.

So he didn’t, and for better or worse, he never got another chance to try.

  
  


Dean leaves work early, puts on the suit in his trunk and picks up a bottle of whiskey to sip out of and pour the rest over a grave, and he thinks about the last time he saw his dad, just like he does every year. He thinks about Sam, working hard and leaning on somebody else, somebody smart and fun and tenderhearted, somebody who loved him enough to follow him all the way out to California.

And then he thinks about Cas, waiting for him at home — or maybe not, who the hell knew, these days — and how fucking miserable he seems to be. How miserable _Dean_ is making him.

And by the time the whiskey’s been drunk and the rest is seeping into his father’s grave, probably murdering the shit out of the grass on top, Dean’s come to the same conclusion he did then.

That, as always, his Dad was right.

After his overdose, Cas made some new rules for himself.

Specifically, rules about Dean.

In addition to not seeing the path of self-destruction right to the red-button finish line over angst about Dean — or any person, for that matter — Cas was no longer allowed to let Dean interfere with the basic functions of his life.

One of those things, of course, was work.

Whatever was going on with Dean — because something was _often_ going on with Dean — Cas was going to do his job, to his and his agent’s satisfaction, and he was going to do it on-fucking-time, like a grown-up.

Right now, though, he is coming perilously close to breaking that rule.

“And you’re sure you can translate four chapters by Monday.”

“I’m sure,” Cas grits out.

Billie pauses.

“It’s strange, Castiel. I work with a lot of authors, and a lot of translators, and if memory serves, I’ve never had to call you before.”

He sniffs.

“I’ve been . . .” he hesitates.

“You’ve been what?” she asks calmly.

“Does it matter? I’ll have them done. Probably. Unless I spend the weekend on the _phone._ ”

There’s a very pregnant pause, and Cas glances over his shoulder, just in case Jessica is standing there with gloves on and a plastic bag in hand, angelic smile right in place.

“I’m not just your agent,” Billie says, catching him off guard.

“What?”

“I’m your friend,” she continues smoothly, like this isn’t a declaration of unprecedented emotionality. “You don’t sound well, Castiel.”

“I’m not sick.”

“I wasn’t suggesting you were.”

They share a long silence.

“I’m — dealing with it,” he says eventually. “And I’m sure I’ll make my next deadline with time to spare.”

“I see.” She pauses again. “Well, if you get tired of dealing with it on your own, remember that you’re not.”

Cas, tired and upset though he is, is still a little touched by the offer.

“Thank you.”

“And I’m extending your deadline by a week. You’re welcome. Get some sleep, Castiel.”

Billie hangs up without another word, and as much as his ego might sting, Cas is grateful.

He’s even more grateful later, when Dean stumbles in, wearing a fucking _suit_ for some mysterious and unknown reason and absolutely reeking of whiskey, and it immediately becomes clear that Cas won’t be getting any work done tonight at all.

“For God’s sake,” he mumbles, hastening out of his chair and over to make sure Dean doesn’t trip and split his fucking head open on the hall tree. “What did you do to yourself?”

“Like you’ve never,” Dean slurs. “So fuckin’ judgey. Shoulda gone to California like Sam, gotten your law degree. Could be sittin’ pretty, tellin’ everybody what’s wrong with ‘em.”

Cas presses his lips together while Dean clearly considers this for a moment, and he outright scowls when Dean laughs.

“And wearin’ a damn dress.” Dean tries to turn his head, mostly manages, and fixes Cas with amused, hazy eyes. “You’d look real nice in that dress, Cas. Maybe y’still could.”

“It’s not a dress.”

Dean ignores him, far away.

“What’s th’difference between a judge an’ a priest, anyway? Looks the same to me.”

“They’re not.”

Dean chuckles.

“Yeah, well, you’d be a cute priest, too. And you’d still get t’judge people.”

“According to you, I get to do that anyway, so I’m happy where I am.” Cas sighs deliberately, although really, he’s struggling to cling to his anger instead of giving in to the worry that wants to overtake it. “Come on. You need to change and go to bed so I can get some work done.”

“Killjoy,” Dean mumbles, but allows himself to be tugged down the hallway.

He makes himself comfortable on the bed while Cas rummages aggressively through his pajama drawer, making as big a mess as possible before he pulls out a clean set and throws them at Dean.

“Put those on.”

“Tired. You put ‘em on.”

“If you didn’t want to deal with the consequences, you shouldn’t have drank that much,” Cas insists, although he grudgingly stalks over and starts tugging at Dean’s suit jacket.

For a moment, Dean doesn’t answer. Then:

“I come by it honestly, y’know,” he says quietly, and Cas slows, swears he’s the one fighting bile even though he hasn’t drunk anything.

The second sleeve slips off Dean’s wrist, and Cas folds the jacket carefully, not looking at him.

“I’m aware,” he answers, just as quiet.

_It’s why I worry._

Dean doesn’t say too much, just lies there and watches while Cas undresses him. Cas can’t be sure if he’s really seeing him, feeling anything at all, or if he’s far gone enough that he’s stuck somewhere in his head, oblivious.

He makes it all the way down to Dean’s socks and shoes before he finally puts it all together.

“Oh,” he blurts, and Dean snorts a few seconds later, clearly not _that_ far gone.

“There it is,” he drawls. “See? Can’t get all judgey, now. I got . . . gotta good reason.”

“Today,” Cas counters, although he does feel bad. He was so caught up in — in _all of this,_ that he completely forgot this day was coming, that it still affects Dean this strongly, maybe always will.

“Yeah, yeah. Fuck off, Cas.” It’s said good-naturedly enough, though, that Cas ignores it and finishes pulling off Dean’s socks.

Dean struggles into a seated position, apparently deciding now is a good time to start helping.

Cas’s hand brushes against his chest while they get his t-shirt on, and when Dean’s head reappears through the neck, he winks.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have drank so much,” he quips, and Cas scowls. “’S’ a problem. I do this every year, y’know. Bein’ sad ‘cause your dad died is fuckin’ — fuckin’ _golden_ material for a pity fuck, but I always forget and get wasted and go home alone.”

“Well, you’re not alone. Although you’re not getting laid, either.”

“’Course not. You never liked him, anyway,” Dean finishes, smirking. “You think I’m better off without him.”

 _You are,_ Cas almost says, but he’s not happy John is dead, is certainly not happy Dean doesn’t have a father, anymore, and there’s really nothing he can say here that will convey the _years’_ worth of thoughts and feelings Cas has on the matter.

Nothing Dean, as drunk as he is, will understand, and he’s hardly about to start a fight when Dean is grieving.

“Do you think we can manage pants or are you fine in your boxers?”

Dean blinks up at him.

“I dunno, Cas, _am_ I fine in my boxers?”

Cas sighs.

“I’m getting you a glass of water. I’ll be right back.”

He takes a moment to compose himself, in the kitchen. He _hates_ this. More than he could ever begin to say, he hates that Dean does this.

He especially hates that, dead parent anniversary or not, it seems to be happening more and more.

Dean seems a little sadder when he returns, a little more subdued than when Cas left him, although it’s been two fucking minutes.

“Drink up,” Cas says, and though the words are curt, he lets them come out a little softer than planned.

“Thanks,” Dean mumbles, then obediently downs the glass before clumsily setting it on the nightstand. It tips over, though fortunately doesn’t break, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

He leans back against the pillows and pats the space next to him.

“I have work,” Cas tries, although he knows he’s going to do it, whatever it is Dean wants, because Dean is feeling sad and hopeless and Cas is all he has right now.

“C’mon. Jus’ for a minute.”

Cas circles the bed and lies back, folding his hands over his stomach.

They’re silent for a while. Cas wonders if Dean will fall asleep soon, knows that if he does, Cas will just end up bringing his work in here, keeping an eye on him while he sleeps it off.

“Cas,” Dean finally says.

“Yes?”

“Are you happy?”

The question catches him off guard, just like it did the first time.

He doesn’t answer it.

“Why do you keep asking me that?”

Dean shrugs, seems to struggle to find a response.

“’Cause. Y’don’t — y’don’t seem happy. But when I ask, and you say yes, I can believe it for a little longer.”

Cas doesn’t know what to do with that.

“Well,” he manages, and he doesn’t want to ask, but he also feels like he has to, has to know where things stand. “What about you, Dean? Are you happy?”

Dean’s quiet for a long time.

“No,” he says eventually.

Cas was afraid of that. It doesn’t surprise him, but it frightens him, even more so because he doesn’t know what to do or how to fix it. He knows it’s his fault, somehow, that he’s doing this to Dean, that maybe they should have never had that talk in the parking lot to begin with, but even so — _even so_ , he doesn’t _want_ to let go.

Dean starts to get up.

“Where are you going?”

He smiles at Cas, fond and sad, and leans over to pat his cheek.

“Need another drink.”

Cas seizes his wrist, holds his gaze

“I hate it when you do this,” he says. Dean knows, already, but it feels important to remind him, anyway.

But Dean just frowns.

“’S’nothin’ wrong with it.”

“Yes, there is,” Cas insists, frustrated, because Dean doesn’t get it, never has, when it should be _obvious,_ when if he cared about anyone, not just Cas, he wouldn’t fucking do it. “You — you get so mad over the drugs, but just because this won’t kill you in one night doesn’t mean it won’t kill you. Your Dad died when he was _fifty-two,_ Dean. If you — if you do that to me, I swear to God, I’ll—"

He cuts off, because Dean — he fucking _chuckles._

“It’s not funny,” Cas hisses, and Dean shrugs, clearly amused.

“It kind of is, man. If I do that to you—" He shrugs again. “You’ll be fine.”

Cas shuts his eyes, lets go of Dean's wrist, listens as he settles back onto the bed.

“I won’t.”

“Nah. You will. You’ll be fine, ‘cause you’re always fine. Y’just . . . bounce right back.”

Cas swallows hard, eyes stinging, because after _everything,_ Dean still doesn’t get it.

“I lied,” he whispers, because at this point, he doubts Dean will even remember. “I’m not happy. You don’t make me happy.”

Dean sighs, and Cas feels his fingers gently brush through his hair.

“I know,” he says quietly. “But — lemme have you for a little bit longer, okay?”

And that — what is that? _What the hell is that_? Cas doesn’t know, and he can’t help it; he starts to cry, because perhaps Pamela was right and he doesn’t understand Dean at all.

He hears Dean inhale sharply, and then he’s rolling over, tucking Cas’s face in his neck like he did when they were kids.

“Sh, s'okay, Cas. You’re gonna be okay.”

And Cas used to think that; especially after his overdose, no matter how bad things got, he was confident in the difference between _want_ and _need,_ confident that however it all turned out, he would be okay.

Now, though — now, he’s not so sure.

In fact, he’s not sure of anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags:
> 
> Explicit Sexual Content: implied/referenced past rimming, shower sex, blowjobs, anal fingering, anal sex, bottom!Cas/top!Dean, topping from the bottom, then not topping from the bottom, I think that's all?


	9. even if it's not what you need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: homophobic remarks in a flashback (details in notes), please tell me if I missed anything else.
> 
> Chapter title from _Affection_ \- Cigarettes After Sex.
> 
> Quick note: Dean makes a comment suggesting his communication issues may have to do with the lack of a mother; that is a thought he has about his situation, but to clarify, gender should be irrelevant to a parent helping a child learn to effectively express themselves; and John should have been able to do that for Dean.
> 
> This is kind of a short chapter, since the scene after it is like, 8k and it made dividing things difficult. Apologies. Chapter 10 may be out tonight (EST), we’ll see! Thank you very much ♡♡♡

“How are you, Dean?”

Pamela’s speaking softly, eyes kind, because she knows what anniversary Dean dealt with last week, and she knows that Dean’s issues with his Dad could keep her in business the rest of her natural life.

And it is a testament to just how fucked up Dean is, to just what a shitty _son_ he is, that Dad is the last fucking thing on Dean’s mind right now.

_You don’t make me happy._

“Good. Kind of. I mean, I — yeah. Week was, uh, normal. Obviously, Saturday was — yeah. Talked to my brother, went and visited my — my Dad. So that was — uh, yeah.”

Pamela opens her mouth, clearly about to ask more about that, and Dean hurries on.

“But it was good. I mean, not good, but — I’m good. On that front.”

Pamela nods.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “That’s . . . good. It sounds like there’s another front that you’re not so good on, though.”

“Yes,” he says quickly. “Yeah, actually, I was — so, um. So, I’ve been doing that thing, that we talked about, with the — the affirmation. Or — or trying, anyway. Obviously, I’m bad at it, but—”

“All things take practice. I’m sure you’re doing fine,” Pamela says, although there’s a different look on her face now, now that they’re not talking about his dad, and Dean wonders if Pamela knows, if Cas told her he was unhappy.

“Right, yeah. But, uh, I was thinkin’ — you know. You — we talked about that, ‘cause I was — havin’ issues, but I think — uh, you know, that Cas isn’t — he seems kind of—” Dean breaks off, not sure what to say. “I think he could be — happier,” he finally continues, halting. “So — I was wondering, I mean, there have to be other things, right? That I — that I can do?”

Pamela nods slowly, scrutinizing him.

“Well, we can all stand to be happier. And yes. Yes, there are probably things you could do to make him happier, although if he’s having problems with work, or his other friends, or even just internally, it’s not reasonable to suppose you or anyone else can fix those things for him.”

“But I could make him feel better, right? And, hey, you know, if — if the problem is me, then . . . “

“Mm. Do you _feel_ like the problem is you?”

 _Of-fucking-course the problem is me,_ he wants to say, but Pamela might wanna talk about that, and Dean doesn’t have time.

He has to know what he can do, and he has to know _now_. Because while his drunken self might have taken that in stride, might have logically concluded that yeah, okay, Cas is gonna leave us, let’s just sit tight ‘til then, sober Dean had a fucking panic attack.

Even if that’s where this is headed — even if that’s what’s best for Cas, just like his dad said — Dean’s not ready. Not yet.

“I mean. Maybe? Could be. Just — just in case. It, uh. It can’t hurt, right?”

Pamela considers this for a long moment. Like, a long, long, _long_ moment. Dean’s pretty sure whole minutes pass.

“Generally,” she begins, meeting his eyes, and there’s something about the way she’s looking at him that makes Dean’s soul feel naked in the floodlights. “But sometimes, actually, it can.”

“What? How? How can trying to — to do more, or be better, or whatever, make things worse?”

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” she offers, and Dean scowls.

“Maybe if I was fucking around in his business, I could mess something up, but we’re talking about _treating_ him better _._ I’m not actually — doing anything. Nothing that could hurt him.”

She nods.

“Sure. But, sometimes, when we think we understand what someone wants, we try to give it to them. Even though they might not want that.”

“Right, sure, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.” Dean rubs his face. “Shit, I can’t even begin to know what Cas _wants._ All I’m asking you is to tell me what I can do, what general advice you’d give to any guy in a relationship who wants to make his partner happier.”

“Is that all?” she asks, dry. “Well, I’d start by telling him to ask his _partner_ what would make him happier.”

Dean just glares, and she nods.

“Alright. Well, we talked about affirmation. And how important that is. And I’m proud of you for trying.”

“But like I said,” Dean points out, a little desperate. “I’m shitty at that.”

“It takes time to learn these things.”

“I don’t _have_ time,” he grits out, and she frowns.

“You don’t have time,” she repeats, and he closes his eyes, taking a deep breath.

“I mean — I mean, he’s suffering _now._ I want it to stop.”

There’s a flash of pity on her face, there and gone in an instant, and as much as Dean hates it, he can handle that, if that’s what it takes.

“C’mon,” he pleads. “You do couples therapy, too. I know there’s textbook shit that’s important in a relationship. Just — tell me? And I promise I won’t give you grief about it. I’ll try, I swear.”

Pamela sits back, looking vaguely unhappy and clearly weighing out her options.

“Well, something we didn’t talk about, as much, though it’s an important element of affirmation and any relationship, in general, is affection.”

Dean hesitates. That’s not — it’s not really what he’s looking for, and he’s surprised Pamela’s bringing it up, because she’s gotten to know Cas pretty well, too, and she must know that that’s not gonna do a lot for him.

“Okay,” he says anyway, because he told her he’d listen, and maybe there’s more to it than he understands.

“The things you say express affection, and it sounds like you’ve been trying to do that. But there’s also a physical element to it. It’s often called skinship, and it’s about touch.”

“Cas doesn’t like being touched,” Dean says automatically, and then winces. “Well, I mean, obviously, he likes _being touched,_ but you know what I meant.”

“Perhaps I know what you were trying to say, but I’m not sure I know what you’re actually talking _about_.”

He waves a hand.

“C’mon, we’ve talked about this. Cas isn’t — he’s not like other people.” Dean doesn’t bring up the cactus thing, because that wasn’t the right way to say it, either. However, it does remind him— “I, uh. When we had that fight, that started the whole bet thing, I said he was like a cat; and I might have been pissed at the time, but it wasn’t too far off.”

“Like a cat? Explain.”

“Uh. You know. Let’s say you have a pet cat — and don’t you _dare_ ever tell him about any of this — and it — it, you know, does cat shit.”

“Cat shit.”

Where do all these sarcastic assholes come from, anyway?

“Yeah,” he grumbles. “Like, it’s a pet, and it lives with you, sure, but it’s really independent. Cats are gonna go where they want and do what they want. They’re not really gonna bother themselves about your schedule, and except for being fed and watered and played with occasionally, they really don’t need or want a lot from you. And sometimes, when _you_ feel needy or whatever, they’ll like, let you pet them and shit, but they mostly just tolerate your human needs, you know?”

Pamela’s obviously struggling to keep a straight face, although it doesn’t look like she’s about to laugh, exactly. Dean’s not actually sure how to interpret her expression.

Honestly, if he didn’t know any better, he’d say she might be about to throw something at him.

“They tolerate your human needs,” she repeats, calmly enough that Dean decides he’s just imagining things. “Hm. Interesting.”

Dean shrugs.

“Yeah, well. It’s true. And you know, only a real asshole catches their cat and forces them to stay put to snuggle, you know? Not to mention it’s a good way to get your eyes scratched out.”

“Yes, well. It’s always good to respect someone’s boundaries, even if that someone is a cat. But cats aren’t _un_ affectionate _._ Cats are often very fond of their humans. They’re sad when left alone, and they’ve been known to bodily interrupt their humans in pursuit of attention.”

Dean nods.

“Sure. But Cas isn’t that kind of cat. He’s more like a — a — a big cat. Like a wild cat. Except, maybe in captivity.”

She looks disturbed.

“This a very . . . creative metaphor.”

“But you see what I’m saying.”

“Yes, I think I do.”

He sits back, relieved.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay, good. So — you see the problem.”

She nods fervently.

“Oh, yes. Definitely.”

“Okay. So . . . yeah. Affection’s off the table, so tell me—”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What?”

“Let’s stay put for a moment. Talk to me about the ways you’re physically affectionate, now.”

“Uh. Okay. Me or Cas?”

“You feel like moments of affection are one-sided?”

“Definitely. See above,” Dean adds, a little snide, but she ignores him.

“Okay, then. Tell me about them anyway.”

He sighs.

“Okay. Well, from Cas’s end — you know, he does care, in his own way. If he can tell shit’s going really bad for you, he’ll pat you on the arm or whatever, or he’ll hover really close, so — you know, so you know he’s there for you.”

Pamela nods.

“Alright. Is that it?”

“Pretty much.”

“And from your end?”

Dean clears his throat.

“Well, not a lot. Like you said — you’ve gotta respect boundaries. Cas is — he’s always been real patient with me, let me hang all over him as a kid, but now that I know better, I’m not about to force a bunch of crap on him.”

“Mhm.” Pamela stares hard at her notepad, although she doesn’t write anything. “Tell me about that, then. About when you were children. How would you say affection worked in your relationship, then?”

“Uh. Well. So I’m not . . . great, with words. Was even worse as a kid. Probably, um, somethin’ to do with the — the Mom thing.” He clears his throat. “So I could be kind of — physical. I mean, I still am, but I was way worse, ‘cause — well, I was a kid. Wasn’t totally conscious of what I was doing.”

“That makes sense.”

“Anyway, Cas didn’t have any other friends — I don’t think he’d had any for a long time, honestly — so he put up with a lot of my bullshit. Probably thought it was normal.”

“Well, you’re being a little vague, thus far, but it probably was normal.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Dean shrugs. “Anyway, I actually — see, we moved around a lot, too, and I was always really wor—I mean, I had to keep an eye on Sammy. So — so me, either. Didn’t have much experience with, um, with the friend thing.”

She nods encouragingly, and he takes a deep breath.

“But suddenly I was staying in one place, and there was Cas, you know, and even when I was a dick, he just — stuck around. And I didn’t get sick of him, the way I could get of other people. As much as we moved around, I guess — I was used to change, I expected it, I got antsy when it didn’t happen. All the other places, even the sort-of friends I made in ‘em, I was usually ready to move on and not look back when the time came.” He shakes his head. “Cas, though. I got used to Cas before I even got used to being at Bobby’s all the time, before I got used to staying in the same school for more than a month. I mean, if anything, he made all that _easier._ I . . . I wanted Cas around as often as he could be, you know?”

“You’re such good friends for a reason, I imagine,” she says softly.

“Yeah. Yeah, but Cas is different. He’s pretty independent. I know he could get scared or anxious at first, ‘cause he wasn’t used to stepping out of the routine, but once he did — he didn’t need me following him around everywhere, you know? He needed his own space, sometimes, needed to go off and read a book or whatever it is he liked to do when I wasn’t there. Not like me. I wanted to take up as much of his time as I could get away with; if I was doing something, I wanted Cas right there with me. And he was really nice about it, indulged me on that, let me cling onto him, but . . . I don’t think he realized he didn’t have to.”

“That’s certainly one way to look at it. When you say ‘cling on’ — do you mean literally? Or figuratively?”

Dean colors, scratches his neck.

“Uh. Both? I — ha, it’s kind of, um. So — so I was — look, I had issues as a kid, alright? In hindsight, I was being obvious, but at the time I thought I was pretty crafty, all the ways I made sure to get what I wanted.” Dean shakes his head. “Guess I was pretty determined. I worked it so Cas was staying over all the time, sleeping up in the bed with me — uh, not in a weird way — but I kind of — you know, even now, I kinda like somebody bein’ there, next to me. And I really wanted that somebody to be Cas. I didn’t like him bein' all the way back at his house, where I couldn’t even check in on him, and even if he was sleeping on the floor, it just — I don’t know. But if he was up in the bed, I knew there was nothing happening without me knowing about it, and I could usually get away with our hands or feet or shoulders brushing, which — God, I don’t even know why, but it made me feel better.”

“That’s very sweet, Dean. You shouldn’t feel bad about it. I think you would have benefited from more stability, during your childhood, and I think things like this provided you a lot of comfort.”

Dean swallows, nods.

“Yeah, sure. No doubt about it. But — y’know. Kinda selfish.”

“I don’t know. I think Cas probably benefited, too.”

“Eh. Maybe. I doubt it. I was a needy little fucker. You know, I even made him — in, uh, in November. On the second. I’d make him hold me. Didn’t even ask, just crawled right over and glommed onto the poor kid.”

“Oh? Do you still do that?”

“Jesus, no,” Dean sputters. “I quit in college, once it became clear—”

He cuts off, and Pamela raises an eyebrow.

“Well. You know. That all that, the — the weird, random cuddles, the goodbye hugs — Cas didn’t need anything like that. Made it obvious, the way he started pulling away — probably when he figured out he didn’t have to just go along with what I wanted. That was all me.”

Pamela hesitates.

“The goodbye hugs?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah.” Dean chuckles. “That’s another thing. I’d walk him home and hug him, every damn day from the time we were like, eleven. Crazy, right?”

“Not necessarily. Hugs are important. A lot of people benefit from receiving them often.”

“Not _that_ often,” Dean scoffs. “And not Cas. But he took it like a champ, I’ll give him that.”

And Dean wonders, sometimes, why Cas put up with so much, but he’s pretty sure he just really _didn’t_ know any better. Dean was his first friend, one of his only friends, and he was just following his lead.

And then he made friends with Meg, and he figured out Dean wasn’t normal, that what Dean demanded in a _friendship_ wasn’t normal, and in true Cas fashion, he refused to put up with it.

“Hm. So, you feel like Cas didn’t need that affection from you. That he still doesn’t.”

“Pretty much,” he confirms, then adds quickly, “But it’s not just me, you know? Cas went without any kind of permanent relationship for ten years, because as much as he likes the sex, he just doesn’t want or need the other stuff.”

“It’s true that people do have varying needs,” she says slowly. “But it’s unusual to not need _any_ of that. In fact, it’s a sign of some other problem, usually.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him,” Dean protests, defensive, and she lifts her brows.

“I’m not suggesting there is. I _am_ suggesting, though, that you might be misunderstanding his level of need.”

“Seems pretty clear to me.”

“Hm. Let me ask you this, Dean,” she says, straightening. “When the two of you came to see me last fall, one of the problems you ran into was something Cas was doing at night, unconsciously.”

Dean blinks.

“The sleep-cuddles?”

“Yes. Is that still happening?”

“Uh. Maybe — maybe a little less, lately, but actually — yeah.”

“And it’s been happening, consistently?”

“Yeah.”

“But he doesn’t have a history of doing that.”

“He doesn’t usually sleep with people, so I don’t know how he’d know.”

“He didn’t do that when you were children, as I understand it.”

Dean frowns.

“Well, no, but — I don’t — what are you trying to say?”

“I’m not sure. But a drastic change in someone’s unconscious behavior usually means that change is rooted in some sub-conscious motivations.”

Dean just gives her a blank look.

She shrugs.

“May I share my opinion here?”

“Sure? It's kinda why I’m here.”

She looks amused.

“Oh, certainly, but you don’t always want to hear it.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Lay it on me, doc.”

“Alright. Well. Basically, Cas is reaching out for you in his sleep. Given that this is not something he did when you were children — a time, I’d like to point out, when you were being very physically affectionate with him — or on the rare occasion he actually _slept_ next to someone else, I think it’s reasonable to suppose that some part of him is craving contact with you.”

Dean stares, uncomprehending.

“You think . . . but . . . that’s . . .” he trails off. Objectively speaking, what she’s saying makes sense, if you swap Dean and Cas with pretty much any other couple on the planet.

But this is _Cas._

“But it’s Cas. I mean — shit, he’s the one who drew the lines.”

“And that could be because he wanted them. But I think it’s important to remember, Dean, that during the time I think you’re talking about, Castiel was _struggling_ with his feelings for you. It’s entirely plausible — probable, even — that he created those boundaries to protect himself.”

Therapy is a minefield on a good day, and Dean feels like he just got caught on the edges of the blast zone, like he’s been thrown to the ground and had the wind knocked right out of him, head spinning.

“I — I guess. I don’t think — I mean, we’ve been dating for a while now, and he’s still not — he hasn’t really . . .”

“Alright. Then you may be right. He may not want your affection.”

Dean takes a sharp breath, and her eyes narrow.

“But let me ask you this. What about you? How often do you try? How often do you touch him in non-sexual ways?”

“Uh. Well — I mean, I don’t, because he doesn’t like it.”

“Maybe. But maybe it’s time to test that theory.”

“It’s not like I never — put my arm around him.” Dean wracks his brain. “I held his hand at the aquarium.”

“Oh? What did he do?”

“What do you mean?”

“In either case. Did he push you away?”

“No, but — that doesn’t mean much. Cas is a good friend. He could be putting up with it, for my sake.”

“He could be. You can’t know, though.”

“I’m not gonna push him.”

“And you really think Cas won’t say anything if you’re annoying him?”

Dean winces, because when she puts it like that—

“Well, no, of course he will.”

Pamela smiles, satisfied.

“Okay, then. Looks like you’ve got work to do.”

He gapes, and whole fruit fly colonies probably rise and fall in the time it takes him to shut his mouth.

“I hate you, you know that, right?”

Her smile widens.

“I must be doing something right, then. Our time’s up for today. Good luck, Dean.”

 _Yeah, well,_ he thinks. _I’m gonna need it._

At the end of the day, touching Cas is _scary_.

Like, Dean knows he likes sex. When they’re not in the middle of the fucking cold war, like they are now, the sex is no problem. Pinning Cas against the nearest flat surface or pulling him on top of him is a piece of fuckin’ _delicious_ cake, but the idea of seriously trying to — to just _hold_ Cas, or snuggle with him, and end up having Cas get uncomfortable or actually tell him _not_ to is just—

Dean feels cold just thinking about it.

Because Cas let him cling to him when they were kids, often indulged Dean’s need to have him around all the fucking time, but that was a long time ago and, let’s face it: Dean had kind of put together a messed up situation back then, even if it was an accident.

Here, though, now? Cas knows better. They’re on equal footing, and Dean’s pretty sure that means Cas _won’t_ just let him do that anymore.

Anyway, he reasons. That’s fine. It’ll hurt like a bitch to have Cas tell him to fuck off, but that’s better than having to worry that Cas is doing something he doesn’t want to do. Shit, that’s a thousand times better; Dean never wants to trap Cas in a situation where he feels like he _has_ to do something, just because Dean wants it.

That’s pretty much the _last_ thing he wants.

Which is the whole point of this exercise, isn’t it? Cas is unhappy, and Dean’s gotta do something to fix it. If he doesn’t, Cas will either dump him or, worse, stay in a shit relationship for too long just so he doesn’t hurt Dean’s feelings.

So, with more than a little trepidation, Dean skulks around the apartment that evening, searching for an opening. It comes around the time Cas gets back from a run — Dean tries not to worry about how often that’s happening, lately — and goes for his shower. Dean gives himself a pep talk while the water runs, body twitching as he mentally rehearses for what’s about to happen, and makes sure he’s planted right near the center of the sofa when Cas comes out, Netflix up and end table lamps glowing warmly.

 _Invitingly,_ he hopes, and casts a critical eye to the plate of peanut butter and jelly sandwich squares on the coffee table.

He refuses to turn around, pretends to be preoccupied flicking through the titles, and his heart gives a little jump when Cas rounds the sofa, dropping into place next to him.

Dean glances over, as casually as he can.

“Hey.” He gestures toward the plate, which Cas is eyeing suspiciously. “I got kinda hungry. Help yourself.”

Cas spares him an odd look, but reaches for a square, anyway, and Dean lets out a quiet breath.

Stage 1: _Success._

That taken care of, Dean queues up a Miss Fisher’s, and once it looks like Cas is absorbed, he carefully drapes an arm right across his shoulders.

He feels the muscles tense beneath his arm, but Cas doesn’t turn or quit chewing, and he relaxes after a moment, (hopefully) refocusing on the show.

Stage 2: _Success._

Dean toys with the strands of hair curling at the nape of Cas’s neck while they watch, absentmindedly (not really) rubs his shoulders periodically, and Cas continues to let him, not saying anything.

When there’s about fifteen minutes or so left on the show, Dean shifts, leaning closer, and gives an obvious sniff.

“You smell good.”

Cas’s gaze flickers toward him.

“I showered.”

“Well, you did it right, then,” Dean deadpans, and when he settles back, he does it without giving up the closeness.

Cas goes back to watching the show and doesn’t push him off the sofa, so Dean goes ahead and calls Stage 3 a win.

The credits roll, and Dean stands, using Cas’s shoulder for a boost and then offering him a hand.

After a moment, Cas takes it, and once he’s up, standing just about toe-to-toe with Dean, Dean girds his loins or whatever and goes for it.

He gives Cas a small, tentative smile, and just kind of — hugs him.

And sure, he feels like a massive idiot, but then he feels Cas’s hands slide across a back, and oh, thank _God._

Stage 4: _Jackpot._

Dean relaxes into it, into the feel of Cas warm and snug against him, no urgency or endgame in sight. He’s not gonna lie and say it’s nicer than he expected, because he knows — he _remembers —_ but it’s easier than he thought it would be, just standing there, holding on.

Kinda comforting, even.

Until Cas starts pulling back.

Something cold snakes along Dean’s spine, and he’s about to mumble a hasty apology, but then there’s a mouth on his and Cas’s hand is sliding up his shirt.

Which is _awesome,_ is _always_ awesome, but—

But that’s not what he’s trying to do, here. And he’s afraid, if he lets this turn into that, this part won’t count the way it’s supposed to.

So he turns his face away, draws back, and gives Cas a small smile.

“Uh, I’m good — that’s not really—”

Cas’s face freezes, and then he pales.

“Oh — sorry—”

“Wait — no—”

“No, no, sorry, of course—”

“But I—”

Cas is already slipping out of his grasp, stepping back and avoiding his gaze.

“It’s late,” he says firmly. “We should go to sleep.”

He turns and hurries down the hall, closing the bathroom door quietly behind him.

Once again, Dean _knew_ better and he fucked it up, anyway.

But hey — at least this answers the affection question, right?

Dean turns off the lamps and takes the sandwich plate to the kitchen, a vague sort of dread pooling in his stomach — especially when a quick glance at the oven clock tells him it’s only eight-thirty, nowhere near the time either one of them goes to bed.

He’s not sure how long he spends, washing that single plate, but by the time he makes it to the bathroom, it’s already nine.

And Dean’s thinking about what his Dad said, thinking about how, no matter how willing he is, he just doesn’t have a lot to offer Cas, and what he _does_ have seems to do more harm than good — and he wonders if maybe, just maybe, that’s a sign.

He doesn’t sleep well, and the worst part is, it means he knows Cas doesn’t, either.

“You forgot.”

“I didn’t — _forget._ ”

“You totally forgot.”

“No — I — got confused, about what day it was.”

Jo rolls her eyes, nudging Dean’s leg with her foot.

“Yeah, _right._ Charlie was saying you had Cas drama; I didn’t realize it was melting your brain.”

“It’s not-”

“Anyway, we still expect you both on my birthday. It’s a weekend and I already talked to Benny; you’re covered for Saturday, and he’ll drive up Sunday when the shop is closed.”

Dean hesitates; it’s hard to say if a weekend trip to Bobby’s is going to help or hurt him and Cas, but realistically, every fucking minute that passes seems to hurt things, so why the hell not?

“Alright. I’ll see you there, Jo-bilee.”

“Fuck off.” She withdraws her feet, sitting upright and reaching for her beer. “What’s your Cas drama, anyway?”

“Nothin’,” he mumbles, and she snorts.

“Must be serious.” There’s a pause, and when he glances over, she’s got that sharp, calculating look on her face, the one that makes her look just like Ellen. “Should I be worried?”

_Yes._

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“It’s fuckin’ uncanny,” Dean retorts, and Jo knows exactly what he means. She punches his shoulder and stands up.

“I’m gonna grab another beer. You want one?”

He eyes her suspiciously, because Jo has a thing about fetching people drinks outside of her mom’s bar, but she doesn’t seem too concerned, nor is he getting any hint of mischief. He nods.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Sure thing,” she murmurs, patting him on the head, and heads for Charlie’s kitchen.

And of _course_ she was up to something, because a minute later, Cas appears, beer in hand.

“Here,” he says, offering it to Dean, not meeting his eyes, which is a new, scary thing he’s been doing ever since the Hug Incident.

“Thanks.”

Cas hesitates.

“Can I sit there?”

“Uhh. I dunno, is she comin’ back?”

There’s another pause.

“She told me you wanted to talk to me.”

Son of a bitch.

“Uh. Yeah, actually. Yeah, you should sit.”

Cas carefully arranges himself next to Dean, not quite touching him.

“What’s up?”

“Not a whole lot, just — Jo’s birthday is this weekend.”

Cas blinks.

“But her birthday’s not until — oh.”

“Yeah, me too. Where the hell’s the time go, right?”

“Right.”

“So, uh. We gotta drive down to Ellen and Bobby’s. You, um, you good with that?”

Cas nods slowly.

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

“I mean — you don’t have to go, if you don’t want to.”

Cas stills.

“Do you not want me to?”

“What? No — obviously you should, but if you have work, I don’t — just, no one’s making you, okay?”

Cas shrugs.

“If it’s all the same, I’d like to go.”

“Okay. Okay, cool. Uh. We can leave Friday after work, or Saturday morning. I’m good either way.”

“Maybe Friday?”

“Yeah, you’re right — spend some more time with them before madness descends. Alright, cool. Sounds . . . good.”

Cas nods.

“Okay.”

They sit quietly, not looking at each other, until finally, their friends return and the first game of the night begins.

Really, Dean should have had his first clue when he was about twelve.

John had stopped in, cut his and Cas’s homework time short, and Bobby quietly sent Dean to ‘walk back with Cas and grab that textbook you left there, alright?’ even though Dean could count on one hand the number of times he’d been in that house, and the only thing of his he ever left there was Cas himself.

But Dean wasn’t about to talk back to _anybody,_ not with his Dad standing right there, frowning at the pair of them, and he had to walk Cas home anyway.

And after that one time — Dean’s hands shook a little as he helped Cas pack up his stuff, conscious of his father watching. Dean wanted Cas away from his Dad as soon as he could manage. He’d settled down a little since then, had convinced himself that his Dad wouldn’t have hurt Cas, wouldn’t have had a reason to, but still—

Just in case.

So Dean walked Cas home, hugged him extra tight, because Cas had that stormy, unhappy look on his face and Dean didn’t have time to figure out what was bugging him tonight, and then he hurried back home to make sure nothing big had happened while he was gone.

“. . . is he still _doing_ here? Every damn time I come around, Bobby, he’s hangin’ all over him like garland on a fuckin’ Christmas tree!”

“They’re not even twelve, John,” Bobby said flatly, and Dean crept along the wall, closer to the doorway, a little surprised they hadn’t heard him come back in.

“That’s what I’m saying,” John argued. “Get rid of ‘im now, before it’s a problem.”

“It’s not gonna be a _problem_. The boy needs friends, and—”

“He doesn’t need to be friends with a goddamn _fairy_ —”

“ _They’re children,_ you damn fool!”

“They’re not gonna stay that way! You’re not an idiot, Bobby—”

“Not like you are, that’s for sure—”

Dean covered his mouth to stifle a shocked laugh, but surprisingly, his Dad ignored the comment.

“Don’t tell me you don’t see how he watches him. Every time I come here, it’s worse. Wouldn’t surprise me if the kid is failing school, since all he does is stare at my boy’s damn face.”

It took Dean a few seconds to piece it together, but as far as he knew, Sam didn’t have any friends with staring problems, which meant . . .

He frowned, deeply disturbed and unable to connect the dots.

Bobby sighed, irritation obvious.

“Alright. If you’re so worried about it, I’ll have a talk with Dean.”

There’s a pause.

“Fine. Make it clear, alright?”

“Go wash up, John. Ellen won’t feed you dirty.”

Dean quickly backtracked, making sure he was just coming down the hall as John left the kitchen, grumbling.

“Took you long enough,” he muttered, but passed him by.

Dean thought about it, that night, though, and when John was gone by the time Dean came down for breakfast and Bobby was putting a plate in front of him, he hadn’t made much progress.

“Can I talk to you, Dean?”

Dean met Bobby’s eyes — serious, but not angry — and nodded.

“Yeah, of course.”

Bobby hesitated, thinking for a long moment.

“You know Ellen and I love you, right?”

Dean’s grip on his fork faltered a little, and he looked down, coloring. Wow, Bobby, way to make breakfast _weird_ right off the bat.

It’s not that it wasn’t — you know, a really nice thing to say, and yeah, Dean’s insides were doing that warm, squishy thing against his will — but it was also really, really uncomfortable, especially when Dean knew he didn’t deserve it. He was practically twelve, and he wasn’t even their kid. He and his brother just got dumped here to eat their food and take up space, and while Sam was still little and cute, Dean knew he didn’t deserve anything at all, much less somebody’s _love_ on top of all that.

“Okay,” he mumbled.

Bobby sighed.

“And you know we love you cause you’re _you,_ son. Alright? All the dressin’ don’t matter. So long as you ain’t hurtin’ yourself or anybody else, it just don’t matter, y’hear?”

“Uh. Yeah.” That made sense, Dean guessed, although he was still kinda confused. Given how mad his Dad sounded, Dean was pretty sure this wasn’t what he wanted Bobby to talk about.

“And you love Sam and Cas,” Bobby continued, and Dean cringed. _Obviously,_ but come _on._

He gave a jerky nod, eating a bite of egg so he wouldn’t have to say anything.

“So the same oughta go for them, alright? If they’re not hurtin’ anyone, it don’t change who they are or how you feel.”

“Well, yeah, of course,” Dean finally said, because the idea that it would was absurd. Dean loved Sammy and Cas no matter what — probably even if they killed someone, because Dean was sure they’d both have a really good reason, though he wasn’t about to tell Bobby that, since Bobby specifically mentioned not hurting anybody.

Still . . . they were getting further and further away from anything Dean thought he’d heard them talking about, though he could have missed the important bits.

Bobby looked like he was done, though, so Dean cleared his throat.

“Hey — Bobby. Uh, when I came back, last night, it sounded like you and my, um, my dad, were fighting.”

Bobby paused, eyeing him warily.

“Havin’ a disagreement, maybe,” he said, in a sort of careful way.

“Oh. It was weird, he was talkin’ about fairies. But, um. We don’t know anybody like that. I mean, it — it almost sounded like he was saying _Cas_ is, but — well, I know everything about Cas, so I’d know, and I don’t think he is.”

Bobby’s whole face went kinda red and funny, and he was silent for a long time before he spoke.

“Your daddy can be dumb about some stuff, Dean. ‘Bout a _lotta_ stuff,” he added darkly. “It ain’t always good to listen to him. And Dean, it’s like we just talked about, isn’t it? Even if Cas is like that, it don’t change anything.”

Bobby seemed done talking, although he kept glancing at Dean through all of breakfast, until he had to go wake up Sam and Jo. Dean went to school full of consternation, though he decided he agreed with Bobby. It might be kind of weird, if Cas _was_ like that, but Cas had always been kind of weird, and Dean loved him anyway.

It’s not like it’d change anything with the two of them, right?

Still . . . this was Cas, and Dean _always_ liked to know what was going on with him, so it didn’t sit right to have this big question mark hanging over his head, important or not.

By lunch, of course, he’d formed a plan.

“Hey,” he said to Cas, once they’d settled in. “Robin’s really pretty, isn’t she?”

Cas looked surprised, glancing over to the girl in question.

“Uh. Yes? She was my partner in music, and she’s funny. She helped me read the music.”

Dean relaxed a little, though he remained watching Cas carefully. He’d sounded a little unsure, which was way better than Cas deciding he wanted to actually _date_ Robin, which would mean spending less time with Dean — but it still left room for doubt.

“Oh, yeah? Cool. Which other girls are pretty?”

Cas tilted his head, giving Dean that curious look.

“Um.” He looked around the room, considering, and Dean held his breath.

“Oh. Carmen has nice hair. It looks like the illustrations in Jo’s book of fairytales.”

Cas loved those illustrations, even though he was twelve and it was a kid book. No way was Dean gonna point that out, though. If it made Cas happy, you know — whatever.

A cursory glance at Carmen’s soft, golden curls confirmed this point.

“Anybody else?”

Cas furrowed his brow, scanning the room.

“Uh. Amanda tells funny jokes in class. And she runs even faster than I do,” he added grudgingly, though there was an admiring look in his eye.

That’s three girls Cas thought was pretty, then. That seemed . . . substantial.

Dean took a deep breath.

“Yeah? What about the boys?”

Cas looked startled.

“What about them?”

“Do you — like, you know. Got a crush on any of them?”

Cas blinked.

“No?”

Dean sat back, relieved. Good.

After all, if Cas liked boys, well — Dad said a lot of things about that, and even if Bobby said his Dad was wrong and Dean was inclined to agree, some of the things his Dad had said suggested life could get pretty tough for Cas if he was like that.

And sure, Dean would be there — he was always gonna look out for Cas, even if Cas _did_ kill someone and was on the run from the law or something like that — but it’d just — it’d make things _harder._

And Dean thought things for Cas were hard enough, although that was another thing he (mostly) tried to keep to himself. Cas’s feelings got hurt if you suggested something was wrong, even if the something wasn’t his fault.

Anyway, Dean mostly forgot about it, going about his day and hanging out with Cas after school until it was dinner time. Cas’s Mom was expecting him back home on time, so Dean walked him over and then headed back to Bobby’s, and only when he walked into the kitchen and saw Bobby at the stove did he remember.

“Oh, hey. I asked Cas.”

Bobby turned a little, squinting as he gave the pot a stir.

“Asked Cas what?”

“You know.” Dean nodded. “’Bout what we talked about this morning. Uh, what you and Dad were talking about.”

Bobby quickly set down the ladle, fixing Dean with sharp eyes.

He almost looked _worried._

“You asked him . . . what, now?”

“Which girls he liked. And if he liked any boys.” Dean shrugged. “He likes a few girls, but none of the boys. So Dad was wrong.”

Bobby’s face gave a funny little twitch, and Dean stifled a laugh. He knew this wasn’t a joking matter.

“Right. Right, Dean, that’s — well. Proactive of ya. But you—” Bobby cut off, pursing his lips. “Just — things like that can change, alright? Y’all are just kids. So if it turns out Cas starts liking a boy — whoever that boy is—”

Dean frowned, forgetting himself and interrupting.

“’Whoever that boy is?’” he echoed, because he wasn’t totally stupid, and that meant Bobby had something specific in mind. “What would that matter?”

Bobby hesitated, then sighed.

“It wouldn’t. But maybe if Cas there decided, well, that he liked _you,_ or something, you’d need to be okay with that.”

Dean drew back, stunned.

“Me?”

“I’m not sayin’ it’s gonna happen—”

“Well, of course not, Bobby, Cas likes _three_ different girls—”

“ _But if it did,_ ” Bobby continued emphatically. “Remember what I said. It don’t change anything, and it don’t mean you two can’t still be friends.”

“Of _course_ we’d be friends,” Dean retorted, insulted. “Besides, Jo says I’m gross, anyway. I don’t think anybody’s gonna like me like that, least of all Cas.”

Anyway, it was one thing to suggest Cas was gonna like a boy someday — even though _three girls,_ Bobby — because fine, Cas hadn’t met everybody he was ever gonna meet, and anything’s possible.

But Cas already knew Dean, and he said ‘no’ when Dean asked about boys. If Cas was ever gonna like Dean like that, he’d know it already, and he’d have said so.

And, well, he _didn’t._ So that was that.

Bobby let out a heavy sigh, shaking his head.

“Things change, Dean. And yer not gross. But maybe you are right — best not worry about it, for now. You just . . . be a good friend, alright?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean agreed, definitely ready to be done with this conversation.

“Alright, then. Get those other two and wash up and set the table.”

Dean went off to make sure Sam and Jo didn’t try and finish their puzzle before dinner, vaguely annoyed, but not particularly worried.

It wasn’t the first or last time Dean had disagreed with Bobby a little, when it came to Cas; but at the end of the day, Dean knew Cas best.

Of _that,_ he could be sure.

Still. The first time he overheard Cas with a guy, their second year of college . . .

Dean felt kind of lied to.

The drive, like so many other things, feels even less comfortable than the one they took before they were actually dating, and Bobby’s got this reluctant-slash-shrewd look on his face when they get there that says Jo definitely called ahead.

“C’mere,” he mutters, and hugs each of them in turn. He gives Cas a onceover. “Y’look good. Ellen’ll be happy.”

And even though things are shit right now, even though Dean’s pretty sure Cas ain’t doing so hot on the _inside_ , the approving look Bobby sends Dean’s way has him straightening right up, shoulders back, because hell _yeah_ , he’s been taking care of Cas.

In the ways he can, anyhow.

Which are mostly just . . . feeding and watering and shit.

Because Cas _is_ like a big cat . . . in _captivity_ , which hey, actually, that would explain why he’s so fucking unhappy.

Dean sort of shrinks back in on himself, at that, and Bobby fixes him with a strange look.

“Alright. Inside. Got a surprise for you.”

He and Cas exchange a look, but follow him inside, and find—

“ _Dude,_ what the — I thought you couldn’t come back for Spring Break!”

Sam ambles toward him, arms out and grinning.

“It was kinda last minute? Like, I don’t think I slept for a week, but—”

Dean pulls his brother into a tight, squeezing hug, clapping him on the back heartily to get him to shut up.

“Well, then you’re takin’ a nap after we get you a snack, but — shit. Man, I’m glad to see you.”

Sam steps back, smile a little hesitant.

“Yeah? Um. Things going okay? Here?”

Dean nearly laughs, because it’s not like he hasn’t been talking on the phone with him, and Sam _clearly_ thinks something is up; in fact, it’s probably why he worked so hard to come out here. Kid’s not happy unless he’s got his nose nice and snug in everyone else’s business, firsthand.

“Great, Sammy,” he enthuses, ignoring the fact that something _is_ up.

Valencia coughs.

“See, Sammy? He’s great. So great.”

“You shut up,” Dean mutters, but half-chases her around the coffee table for a hug. “Dude, stop dodging.”

She grins.

“I could say the same to you.”

And Dean’s not even going to pretend to know what the hell she’s on about.

He catches her — or rather, she stops evading him — between the sofa and the coffee table and gives her the kind of playful-yet-vaguely-antagonistic hug he usually reserves for Sam.

“Wow,” she mutters into his shoulder. “I feel like part of the family.”

“You are.” He lets her go, and she tilts her head, grin softening to a smile.

“How are you, Dean?”

“Good,” he says reflexively, glancing over to where Cas is trying and failing to avoid ending up in Sam’s armpit.

Valencia blinks.

“That was . . . really not convincing. You need more therapy.”

“The hell?” he splutters, and she shrugs.

“Therapy’s where you learn to lie,” she explains patiently, and he stares.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

She just shrugs.

“Maybe. What do I know?”

Dean feels a spike of panic. No way has Cas been blabbing to everybody they know, obviously, but maybe he told Valencia—

“What _do_ you know?”

She considers this, searching his face, then sighs.

“Nothing. But Sam _is_ worried about you. Talk to him, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles, averting his gaze and hopefully disguising his relief. “Next time I get the chance.”

“I’m free now,” Sam volunteers, right-fucking-behind-him, apparently, and Val darts around them both to collect her hug from Cas.

“Yeah, well, I’m not. I gotta get our room set up, and then we’re helping with dinner. Later.”

Sam makes a face.

“But—”

“And you’re supposed to take a nap, bitch. Don’t think I forgot.”

“Jerk,” Sam grumbles, but he gathers up his stuff and follows Dean to the stairs.

Dean, for his part, immediately puts himself to the task of figuring out how to avoid having this conversation with Sam without actually avoiding his little brother for the entire weekend.

So far, it doesn’t seem possible, but hey; he’ll figure something out.

He always does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> Past homophobic remarks: In a flashback (Dean is just shy of 12), John confronts Bobby about Cas’s continued presence, referring to Cas as a ‘fairy’ and trying to insist Bobby stop them from spending time together. Dean overhears.


	10. just keep me near

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: explicit sexual content (tags in the notes, scene can easily be skipped and is marked with *** at the beginning and end), please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Chapter title from _Don't You Wait_ \- Cloves.
> 
> Apologies for the lateness, and for the porn. If you don't read smut, this will feel like a very short chapter, but 11 is being posted right after! If you do read smut and I missed an instance of 'shirt' or 'shift' where I failed to include the third consonant, sorry!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you all had a nice weekend ♡!

Dean ends up hiding from his brother in the treehouse.

He’s not as much a fan of weed — liked it much better before Cas ever touched the stuff — but right about now, he kinda wishes he had some, just to relax. Knowing Cas, there’s probably an emergency stash in his suitcase, but Dean’s already here and besides, he’s not sure if things between them are okay enough to share weed.

Which is why it’s such a surprise when Cas comes to find him.

“Hey there, Cas,” Dean says softly, once he’s listened to the thumps and creaks of Cas climbing the ladder until finally, the top of his bird’s nest hair, clearly damp from a shower, crests the opening.

“Hello, Dean.” Cas pauses halfway in, and Dean can tell it feels weird to him, too.

There must have been some times, when they were young, that Cas showed up here after Dean, climbed up to meet him — but Dean doesn’t really remember them. Usually, Cas was right there with Dean when he climbed up, and the rest of the time . . .

Well, the rest of the time it was Cas up here, waiting on Dean.

And the thought kind of gives him a weird pang, because as totally fucked up as it is, Dean had always liked that. He’d liked that a whole hell of a lot, making Cas wait in the treehouse while he finished dinner or chores or whatever. And sure, part of it was knowing his friend was there to play when he was done, but Dean’s not stupid. He knows a supremely messed up part of himself was running the show, there, and he can’t deny that more than anything, he liked the idea that Cas would rather spend his time waiting for Dean than even _trying_ to find some better alternative, liked knowing Cas probably didn’t have much time for anybody else, at all. After all, Cas was willing to wait whole hours for Dean to come up, and even when Dean was out there in less than fifteen minutes, it was somehow different than the times Cas waited for him at the park, or in front of the school, or wherever.

There was just something about Cas, tucked away from the whole rest of the world and all the people in it, in _Dean’s_ treehouse, just waiting for Dean to come find him, that was . . .

Well, it doesn’t matter what that something was; the point is, Dean was terrible for liking it then, and he’s even worse for getting wistful over it now, because if anything, he should be thinking of all the hours of Cas’s life he spent waiting on Dean and _cringing._

“What are you doing up here?”

Dean shrugs, flicking the latch on one of the little cupboards open and shut.

“Breathing room.”

Cas nods.

“It’s good for that.”

He pulls himself up the rest of the way, shutting the little trap door behind him.

And it’s funny, but even though they’ve been living together for months now, Dean’s never felt it more acutely, the fact that they’re _alone_ together _._

He breathes a little quieter.

Cas glances around, taking in the little room, the threadbare curtains on the small windows, the scuffed up wooden cubbies.

“It seems so much smaller, now,” he remarks, still crouched next to the opening, and Dean smiles.

“Yeah, you said something like that at Thanksgiving.”

Cas squints.

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Nah. It was cute,” Dean adds, not really thinking about it, and Cas’s brows dip further. Dean clears his throat. “Gonna sit, or did somebody tell you to come get me?”

“Oh. No — I just . . . wondered where you were.” Cas shifts uncertainly, and Dean takes a chance and pats the space next to him, the wall adjacent to the cubbies and bare of windows, the one they used to lean against when they huddled under a blanket in colder weather, usually just reading.

If Dean didn’t know any better, he’d say Cas looks relieved, immediately crawling across the short distance and settling in beside him.

He’s warm, and it’s nice. Dean has a stupid, girly impulse to get the blanket out of the cupboard so they can sit and cuddle for a little while, but he doesn’t even want to know what Cas would say to that.

After a moment, Cas tilts his head, inspecting the cubby next to Dean.

“Is there still anything in there?” he asks, and Dean relaxes a little, grinning, because that’s an easy question.

“Hell yeah. I mean, the comics are safe and sound at home, of course, but, uh—” he twists, pulling it open and revealing a small pile of trinkets. “Ta-da.”

Cas leans forward, right into Dean’s space, eyes a little wondering.

“Oh.” There’s a small smile starting over his face, and it makes Dean feel good, that Cas can look at all the random little tchotchkes Dean held precious as a kid and somehow, for whatever reason, it makes him smile.

Like _he_ remembers, too, and they’re good memories for him.

Dean looks away, plucking an item from the pile.

“Remember this?” he murmurs, running careful fingers over the glazed ceramic bluebird, pausing over the chip on one wing. “I wanted it so bad, when I thought Missouri was gonna throw it out.”

Cas nods.

“I remember. You were extremely compelled by anything to do with pie.”

“C’mon. They looked awesome.” Dean will never be over the idea of _venting_ a fucking pie. It’s ingenious.

“They did,” Cas agrees slowly, watching with a strange expression as Dean absentmindedly toys with it. “That one was your favorite.”

“Yeah. I was so upset when we went to see her and it was out on the counter, wing all chipped up.” He laughs. “I guess she could tell, which is why she let me take it.”

“It’s not like she could use it again.”

“Guess not.” He hesitates, then chuckles again. “You remember the lecture she gave me with it? ‘Just ‘cause it’s broken doesn’t mean it’s not still worth taking care of. You want something to be yours, Dean Winchester, you better love it right, anyway.’ Like, it’s a broken pie vent — and I bet you anything she was gonna pitch it if I didn’t take it! But kids are weird, man. Made perfect sense to me at the time. And I did love the damn thing.”

He inspects it, considering.

“You know — I could maybe still use it. Like, If I glaze this bit where it broke, fix it up a bit — should work just fi—hey!”

One minute, Dean’s thinking of ways to McGyver a favorite childhood possession back to usefulness, and the next, the little bluebird is being carefully cradled in Cas’s hands, guided back to its perch in the cubby.

And then Cas is climbing into his lap, clasping Dean’s face in both hands and kissing him like his life depends on it.

Dean is so fucking _confused,_ trying to figure out what part of Dean’s boring childhood anecdotes managed to get Cas’s engine revving, especially since he’s been keeping Dean at arm’s length the last several days, but then he remembers _oh_ , right, this is _Cas._ A strong breeze will practically get him in the mood.

But more importantly, they’re miles away from anybody he might usually booty-call, and suddenly Cas coming to find him in the treehouse makes perfect sense.

Dean can feel his face heating, and it’s not from Cas’s kisses. Jesus. How the hell did he miss that? Poor Cas obviously took a shower and came up here hoping to shake the tree for the sexy kind of fruit, but Dean just ended up rambling about meaningless shit from when he was a child, like any of it mattered.

He draws back a little, away from Cas’s frantic kisses, though soft palms remain fixed to his cheeks.

“Sorry,” he breathes out in a rush. “You should’ve said something soo—”

Cas gives him a confused, impatient look, eyes a little wild, and kisses him again, one hand sliding up until Dean can feel his fingers thread through his hair. Some of the embarrassment fades, because Cas is clearly really hard-up, today, and he doesn’t seem to care that Dean is completely obtuse so long as he gets with the program now.

Which, yeah, okay. Dean can do that. This part — this part’s easy. Hell, this part might be all he gets, from now on.

So he does that. He kisses Cas back, strokes up under Cas’s ridiculously soft sweater, and when Cas finally lets go of his death grip on Dean’s head and starts trying to push off his jacket, Dean does the responsible thing and grabs his hands, pulling back.

“Okay — okay, yeah, let’s, uh — we should probably go inside.”

Cas freezes, eyes flicking from Dean’s face to the floor, and he makes no move to get up, breathing hard and muscles tense where Dean is gripping his hands.

He’s quiet for a long time, and Dean wonders if maybe he changed his mind.

“Cas?”

Cas flinches a little.

“I — can you—” He cuts off, and then he leans forward, resting his forehead in the crook of Dean’s neck, almost like he’s hiding.

“Here,” he mumbles after a moment. “In your treehouse. Please.”

And Dean — Dean feels like he’s missing something, has no idea why Cas would want to fuck in Dean’s dusty old treehouse, where no matter how quiet they are, it’s not a windy day and all the creaking is going to make it obvious what’s happening up here, should anybody walk by — anybody like Dean’s _little brother_ or _surrogate parents —_ but Cas is tucked snug against Dean’s shoulder, hunched up like he’s waiting for Dean to say _no,_ and that’s just—

Well, if this is what Cas wants, then it’s damn well what they’re gonna do.

“Okay,” he murmurs, kissing the top of Cas’s head, and he feels him shiver. “Lemme just — put the blanket down, okay? Back up for a sec.”

Cas crawls off of him, tucks himself back in the corner to watch while Dean hastily gets the blanket out of the other cubby, spreading it across the floor and throwing his leather jacket down for good measure.

God, but he wishes he had some pillows or something. He’s not sure how Cas will want to do this, but Dean likes the idea of having his back or knees to the rickety treehouse floor only _slightly_ better than the idea of subjecting Cas to the same — even if Cas _is_ the one who insisted on doing this.

“Are you sure—” he starts, thinking Cas has to be seeing the flaw in this plan, but Cas just looks down at the tops of his knees.

“If you don’t want to—”

“No, no, no,” Dean interjects hastily. “No, it’s fine, I just — want you to be comfortable.”

Cas nods firmly.

“I’ll be fine.”

It feels weird, all the urgency replaced with a bizarre sort of hesitation, but Cas is determined, so Dean’s more than ready to see it through.

“Uh. So — how were you thinking . . .?”

Cas glances up, then away, and it’s like he’s feeling shy or something. Dean can probably count on one hand the number of times he’s seen him like this since they were kids.

“However you want,” he mumbles.

“Well — I figured you had a — a — an idea? About it. Specifically.”

 _Like, should I text Sam to get the_ _heating_ _pad_ _for my lower back when I come back in?_ he almost jokes, but it doesn’t feel like the time.

Cas hesitates.

“That was it,” he says eventually, so quiet Dean almost doesn’t hear him, and then repeats, “However you want.”

And he says it like _that_ was the plan — like ‘how Dean wants’ is actually a significant _feature_ of the plan, and Dean’s stuck wondering a) if he’s misunderstanding, b) if he’s not misunderstanding, then _what the fuck_? And c) if this is some weird kink thing he doesn’t get, in which case he better figure it out or risk mishandling it and ruining it for Cas.

It’s a lot of pressure, basically, and then he realizes that _on top of all that,_ he has to actually make a decision here, especially since Cas is getting this pained look on his face and starting to fidget, and yeah, turns out knowing you’re already ruining things for your partner is not exactly great for performance anxiety.

So Dean wracks his brain, low-key panicking as he glances about, like the answer is going to literally present itself right there inside the treehouse, and—

And actually, it kind of does.

Dean looks to the little cubby door still open, at the little bluebird pie vent; it’s right in front of Dean’s old batman action figure, the spare key to the Impala his Dad gave him once in case of emergency and forgot to ask for back, a tarnished silver lighter, and a bunch of other random stuff Dean counted among his treasures as a kid. Somewhere in that pile is a generic little match box, a thing Dean _knows_ Cas was always curious about, although Dean trusted him enough to know he’d never look in it without permission.

It has the remnants of that bracelet Dean made Cas, carefully rescued from the Novak garbage bin and cleaned up in Bobby and Ellen’s laundry room sink. Dean knew he should probably have given the pieces back to Cas, who’d gotten a little teary-eyed when he told Dean what had happened, but he was afraid Naomi would find them and throw them out for good.

And suddenly Dean knows what the something was — what felt so right about Cas being sequestered away in _Dean’s_ space, surrounded by _Dean’s_ most cherished possessions, far away from his dickbag family and any other potential contenders for his friendship.

Because the treehouse was the only place in the whole world that truly belonged to Dean, and it’s only natural that that’s where he hoarded all his treasures.

Or tried to, anyway.

But here he is again, and so is that last, missing trinket, a thing that does not and never will belong to anyone, because the one treasure Dean never managed to outgrow makes its own goddamn decisions.

When he looks back at Cas, Cas is looking at the cupboard, too — a little wistfully, if Dean’s not imagining it — and yeah, okay. Dean thinks he knows what he wants to do here.

He’s going to take something he wants to be his, and even if things are kind of broken right now, he’ll do his best to love it right, anyway.

***

He jerks his head toward the laid-out jacket, and Cas immediately shifts onto it, sitting back on his hands, knees bent, and jesus, there’s not a lot of space to work with here.

Oh, well. They’ll just have to stay close.

“Take off your sweater,” he instructs him, and Cas strips it off, handing it over when Dean reaches for it.

He takes it, folding it carefully into a plush little rectangle, and then kneels in front of Cas, reaching around him to tuck it behind him.

Cas gives him a questioning look.

“Makeshift cushion,” he offers, and Cas licks his lips. “Shirt?”

He watches, pulse quickening, as Cas pulls it off and shivers. Dean’ll have to fix that, in a second.

“Lie back.”

Cas goes easily, settling flat on his back, hips a little raised from the sweater underneath him, and watches Dean with hooded eyes.

Dean swallows. Cas looks so good, always does; he doesn’t know what the future will bring, but he knows a moment’s gratitude that he ever got to have this, even once, let alone as many times as he has.

He reaches for the button on Cas’s pants, carefully undoing them and sliding down the zipper, and Cas lifts his hips for Dean to take them off. He folds them and sets them aside, and when he turns back, he catches Cas shiver again.

“Cold?”

Cas nods. Dean considers him for a moment, then shrugs out of his flannel and pulls his t-shirt over his head, tossing them over Cas’s chest while he maneuvers out of his own pants. It’s fucking cold in the treehouse, but with any luck, that won’t last long.

As soon as his pants are balled up and shoved in the corner, Dean sweeps the cooling clothing off of Cas and settles on top of him, skin to skin, forearms bracketing the tops of Cas’s arms as Dean tucks his face into his neck.

Cas shivers again, but it feels like the good kind, this time.

“Better?” Dean asks, and Cas snakes his arms around Dean’s waist.

“Yes,” he confirms, breath warm against Dean’s ear, and Dean kisses his shoulder, letting a little more of his weight onto Cas; not enough to crush him, but enough to make sure he’s covered, that he’s warm, that he knows Dean is going to take good care of him.

Cas responds with a sigh, tightening his arms and kissing Dean’s neck. Dean wants to tilt his head, wants to invite Cas to deepen that kiss, bring out his teeth and leave the kind of mark that will have everybody in the house rolling their eyes at the two of them; but then he remembers that he’s got Cas right there underneath him, that Cas gave him blanket permission to pretend Cas is all his, whether he realized it or not, and that’s all the motivation he needs to seal his mouth over the edge of Cas’s collar bone and leave a hungry little mark of his own.

Cas’s fingers dig into his back, and he sighs again, body twitching minutely as Dean wets his tongue against the spot, scraping his teeth over it and then sucking until it turns from pink to red to ever-so-slightly purple.

Satisfied somewhere deep in his troubled soul, Dean raises himself a little, admiring the mark.

Cas’s eyes flick downward, head lifting as he tries to see, but then he gives up and falls back, just watching Dean.

He’ll see it later, Dean decides. He’ll see them all later, feel them when he pulls his shirt back on, when he drags the shower loofah across his skin, across marks that can’t be scrubbed off. And maybe he’ll think of them, will smile to himself, because sex always makes Cas smile, or maybe he won’t think anything of it at all, easily dismissing one more encounter among the hundreds he’s already had — but they’ll be there.

Dean shifts downward, pressing his mouth to Cas’s chest, and there he leaves another.

He takes his time, repeats this process with careful attention until Cas is squirming and tangling his fingers in Dean’s hair, breaths short and fast and interspersed with soft moans, encouragements that spur Dean onward like a man possessed.

And then he feels Cas buck up a little, feels the damp front of his boxers brush against his stomach, and he knows it’s time to move on.

He scoots back up and kisses him again, leaning on one elbow so his other hand can move along Cas’s body, palm the curve of his side, thumb brushing dusky nipples that tighten beneath the attention. Cas arches up again, so very beautiful in his pleasure.

“I’m gonna put my shirt over you, okay?”

Cas just nods, tilting his head up for one more kiss before Dean reluctantly pulls back, draping his discarded shirt over Cas’s chest and kneeling between his spread thighs.

“I think it’s time to take these off,” he whispers, fingering the waistband of Cas’s boxers, and Cas lifts his hips, holding steady while Dean slowly drags them down his legs. It’s a little tricky, given the proximity, but together, they manage.

He sits back, lets himself just drink Cas in, for a moment; Cas is hard, leaking at the tip, and Dean’s t-shirt over his chest makes such a poor effort at modesty, the picture is somehow _more_ lewd.

More than anything, though, he’s just — beautiful. All laid out and open and trusting, patiently waiting for Dean to do whatever it is he’s going to do — it’s almost enough to fool a man into thinking something really _is_ his.

Dean reaches for him, drags his palms from the tops of Cas’s bent knees to the back of his thighs, and gently pushes his legs back.

There’s no resistance, though Cas breathes in deeply, eyes falling shut; he simply lies there and lets Dean move him as he pleases, and good God, but Dean is pleased. He can’t help but tighten his grip on Cas’s legs a little, push them apart just that tiny bit more, leaving Cas utterly exposed to him and one of the most beautiful things Dean has ever had the privilege of witnessing.

Cas didn’t come here to have Dean stare at him, though, so Dean relaxes his grip and leans forward, pressing a light kiss to Cas’s left knee.

Cas sighs, arching a little, and Dean shifts back, gently kissing his way down Cas’s thigh, thumbs rubbing circles on the backs of them until he nears his destination. He ghosts his lips over the juncture of Cas’s thigh, breathing hot against the base of his shaft. There’s a tiny noise from above him, a soft little gasp delightfully at odds with the deep gravel of Cas’s voice, and Dean tries to let him know how much he loves that sound by lightly nuzzling Cas’s cock where it curves toward his belly.

In his peripheral, he sees Cas’s hand twitch, and he briefly relinquishes his hold to reach for it, bringing it up to his hair. Cas’s fingers curl loosely in the strands there, and Dean resumes his focus, pressing a soft kiss to the head of his cock, lapping up the pearling drop of precome while he’s there.

There’s a sharp intake of breath, and Cas’s hand tightens. Dean smiles, then reluctantly draws away, moves lower, mouthing at Cas’s balls and then sweeping his tongue along until he reaches—

Cas jerks a little, and Dean squeezes his thighs, pressing the flat of his tongue against Cas’s hole and slowly dragging it across while Cas twitches in his grasp.

“Dean— ” he breathes, and Dean answers by circling gently with his tongue, lapping at the surface, in no hurry to dive.

It’s not that he wants to _tease_ Cas; but he wants it to be good. He wants Cas to feel it, feel more than a quick alleviation of boredom while he’s stuck outside the city and away from all his other options; he wants to take Cas apart, wants him out of his mind with pleasure, enough that he remembers how good it was, remembers it was Dean who made him feel that way.

Dean increases the pressure of his tongue, lavishing the area with firm, swirling strokes, and when Cas tries to push up, push against him, Dean holds him still.

“Just relax,” he says, pausing for breath, and before Cas can answer he dips back down, pushing the tip of his tongue inside.

There’s a choked off moan, and Cas bucks against him, straining against Dean’s hold. Dean hums, withdraws his tongue and blows, ever so lightly, and then moves his right hand off Cas’s leg.

Immediately, that leg wraps around Dean’s neck and shoulders, and Dean smiles, bringing the pad of his thumb to Cas’s hole and pressing down.

“Oh — Dean— ” Cas gasps, and Dean closes in, flicking his tongue across and then sliding it in, licking at him while his thumb dances on the outskirts, playing over the spasming circle of muscle as he delves inside and tastes him.

Cas’s heel is digging into his shoulder, and it feels good, like _want_ and _need_ and all the things Dean’s been doubting. He rewards him by pushing a little more insistently, tongue slipping as deep as it will go, dragging back against Cas’s walls and then diving back in, again and again until Dean can hardly breathe and his thumb is starting to slide from all the saliva.

So Dean draws it back, pushing the tip of his index finger in instead, flush alongside his tongue, and Cas clutches at his hair and moans, a filthy, gorgeous noise that has Dean wishing he had an extra hand to touch himself with.

Instead, he slides his finger further in, and Cas is so fucking _tense_ , squirming and panting and clutching at Dean’s hair and gasping out a chorus of incredible little noises that are going straight to Dean’s dick.

“Dean — Dean— ” And Christ, when Cas says his name, when Cas says his name like _that,_ pushing into the pressure of Dean’s tongue and finger where they slip against each other inside him, shallow thrusts he nonetheless tries to clench around, leaving Dean dizzy with anticipation for what’s to come—

Dean licks inside of him for just another minute before he pulls back, breathing heavy, and starts sucking marks into the soft skin of Cas’s thighs.

Cas trembles beneath him, but his grip loosens, hands stroking over Dean’s hair as Dean nips at the skin, finger still playing in a gentle rhythm.

He works a little longer than necessary after the first one, because if he thought Cas looked good with Dean’s marks all over his neck and chest and shoulders, Cas looks positively delectable with his thighs dotted in faint purple spots, lewd evidence of what Dean’s done to him, what he’s going to do.

That Cas just lay back and let him, gasped and moaned his name with every new mark.

Eventually, though, he slips his finger all the way out and sits back up on his knees, shaking free of Cas’s stroking hand.

“I wanna open you up for me,” he says, and Cas blinks, then shudders.

“Y-yes. Alright. I want you to.”

“My jacket’s by your head. Wallet should still be in the pocket.” Dean rubs soothing circles over Cas’s shaking legs, and Cas hurriedly reaches over and fishes the article out, offering it to Dean.

Dean takes it, and to his relief, the emergency lube packet is still in there.

He braces himself against the floor, leaning over Cas and brushing his lips against his.

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

Cas shivers again, hands going to Dean’s sides, but Dean shakes them off and sits back again, gently nudging Cas’s legs further apart and tearing the top off the packet.

He squeezes some out onto his fingers, rubbing it between them until it no longer feels cold.

Then he leans down, breathes lightly against the head of Cas’s cock. He sucks the tip between his lips, flicking his tongue against the slit while his fingers drift down, seeking out their destination and slipping gently around it, the barest of caresses while Dean’s mouth does the same. He glances up, and a shudder courses through him at the look Cas is giving him, teeth clamped down on his bottom lip.

Dean holds his gaze and pushes the first finger in, watching as Cas’s lips part, red from Dean’s mouth and his own teeth, eyes dark and wanting.

“Dean,” he whispers, and Dean strokes inside of him, mouth sliding a little further down Cas’s dick, cheeks hollowing around him as Cas lets out a fevered groan. “ _Dean._ ”

 _God_ , he thinks, slowly working his finger in and out, a pace that must be maddening for Cas. The _sounds_ he makes, the way he feels in Dean’s mouth, the way those magical hips tremble, Cas clearly fighting not to thrust into Dean’s mouth or back on his finger — the way he succeeds, doesn’t beg or demand more even though it’s so fucking obvious he wants it, simply letting Dean work him over—

Dean slides a second finger into him just as he sinks down, taking Cas as deep as he’ll go, and Cas actually thrashes beneath him, turning his head to the side with a hoarse cry.

“ _Dean_ ,” he gasps, and Dean bobs his head, keeps his tongue pressed up against Cas’s dick, mouth tight and slick around him, and then he starts to scissor his fingers, carefully stretching him. He can feel Cas tighten around them, feel how his body tries to hold onto the digits, draw them further in, and he has to pause a moment to gather his bearings.

Cas lets out a strangled, frustrated sound, and Dean resumes his ministrations, pulling off and licking at him in rhythm with his fingers before swallowing him down once more.

Cas doesn’t say ‘please,’ doesn’t try and urge Dean on with his voice, but it’s there in his body. Dean takes another couple of minutes, thrusting his fingers in and out, working them back and forth, stretching him, and then he pushes in a third finger.

Cas’s hands find his hair again and he lets out a goddamn _beautiful_ sound _,_ body twitching all over, but he still doesn’t move his hips.

Dean draws back, fingers still working in thorough, languid strokes, carefully avoiding that particular spot that will almost certainly have Cas fucking back down onto them. He runs his free hand up and down Cas’s chest, brushing his thumb along his nipples.

“Feel good, Cas?” he asks, twisting his fingers, and Cas just looks at him, breathing harsh.

“Yes,” he eventually manages. “It feels so good, Dean. You always feel so good.”

Heat and warmth flare up inside Dean, and they’re two completely different things.

“Good. I want to make you feel good.” Dean leans down, mouths at his neck a little and moves up to kiss him, Cas’s whole body taut and trembling beneath him. He relaxes a little when their lips meet, and Dean loses a good few minutes to a tangle of tongues and lips and teeth, slowing the rhythm of his fingers as they kiss.

“Gonna finish opening you up,” he tells him, although it’s a given. Cas shivers and nods, mouth brushing Dean’s chin with the movement. Dean kisses him again. “You gonna be okay if I keep sucking you?”

Cas twines his fingers in Dean’s hair, one hand warm on the nape of his neck.

"Yes.”

“Do you want to move?” Dean brushes their cheeks together, kisses his jaw. “I never said you couldn’t move. Do you want to fuck my mouth while I get you ready for me?”

The hand on his neck tightens, and Cas shudders.

“I — whatever you want.”

Dean drops a line of kisses across his cheek and jaw and chin, sucking a little on one of the marks he left and determinedly ignoring his cramping fingers.

“I want that,” he says, and then moves back down, sliding his mouth over Cas’s dick and palming his hip in encouragement.

After a moment, Cas starts to move, and Dean relaxes his throat, fighting the urge to gag as he feels Cas hitting the back of it, the tip just slipping down.

And then he carefully slides his pinky in, swallowing around Cas’s cock and stroking up inside him, finally letting the tips of his fingers find—

Cas arches, hips leaving the makeshift bed of leather jacket and flannel, and Dean chokes a little. He would honestly not be surprised if they heard that moan inside the house.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck,_ ” Cas whimpers, twisting, and Dean presses mercilessly at his prostate, Cas snug around him. His own cock is positively _aching_ for some kind of touch, but having Cas writhing underneath him is as much a distraction as a catalyst.

At this particular moment, though, Cas bearing down on his fingers, clamping tight around them, the slick sounds of all their movements echoing in the treehouse — all it does is make Dean think of how it’s going to be in a few moments, how it’s going to be when Dean gets inside of him, when that’s his cock Cas is squirming around, so hot and tight and un-fucking-believably perfect, and yeah, it’s time.

He pulls off of Cas, withdrawing his fingers, and Cas winces. Dean cleans them off on the flannel and hastily wipes his mouth before leaning over Cas once more, and this time, Cas wraps his arms around Dean, clinging as best he can.

Once again, Dean hears the plea that isn’t said.

“I’ve got you,” he promises him, and pretends it’s true.

Dean reaches for his wallet again, though it’s difficult, with Cas holding onto him like this, and as soon as he pulls out the condom, Cas tenses.

He shakes his head, and it’s stupid — not to mention an unnecessary risk, after knowing Cas has been out and about to his heart’s content **—** but this has been Cas’s only request so far, and Dean’s not even going to bother trying to say he wouldn’t rather do it without, wouldn’t rather feel Cas's heat directly surrounding him, wouldn’t rather bury himself inside him and stay there when he comes.

For right now, though, he tosses the wallet aside, reaching for the lube packet and squeezing the rest of it into his palm. He doesn’t bother warming it up this time, just slicks up his cock and leans back. He maneuvers a little further up and pulls Cas partway into his lap, palms on the back of his thighs, sliding towards the back of his knees as Dean presses his legs back.

Cas just watches him, face flushed and pupils blown, and Dean tightens his grip, definitely not missing the sharp intake of breath that follows.

“I’m gonna fuck you now, Cas,” he says, and the words elicit a hard shudder.

“I want you to,” Cas repeats, and Dean lines himself up with a little less finesse than usual, gaze trained on Cas’s face, on the desperation and longing there. Then he leans forward a little more, pressing Cas’s legs a little further back, and starts to push inside.

Cas inhales sharply, head turning as his body jerks, and Dean lightly strokes one thigh, soothing.

“Shh. I’ve got you,” he mumbles, but it comes out shaky, because despite all that prep, Cas is snug around the head of his cock, impossibly hot and impossibly _good._ Even if Dean weren’t already as worked up as he is, the heat and the pressure of that scant inch have him wanting to slam forward, bury himself inside of Cas as deep as he can, hold him still and fuck him hard and fast until neither of them can see straight.

And he’s pretty sure Cas would be okay with that, pretty sure that if it were up to Cas, he’d surge upward, draw Dean in and roll his hips until Dean got the message and did just that — but that’s not what this is about.

This isn’t about the finish line. It’s not even about staking a claim, much as the temptation is there.

It’s about taking care of something Dean wishes, more than anything, could belong to him.

“Dean,” Cas whispers, fingers curling in his hair, around the back of his neck. Dean tilts up and kisses him, uses his mouth in lieu of words he doesn’t dare let out, and pushes forward another inch, letting Cas adjust for a moment before drawing back out and sliding in a little further.

He fights to keep this pace, shallow thrusts in and out as he works his way in, and by the time they’re flush against each other, Cas wrapped all around him and Dean seated as deep as he’s going to get, they’re both panting, Cas’s harsh breaths interspersed with sharp little cries each time he takes Dean deeper.

Dean just stays still for a minute, forehead resting against Cas’s jaw, and tries to catch his breath. The hand in his hair gentles, slides down to cup his cheek, and Dean wriggles one hand up to cover it, holding it in place as he turns his mouth into it.

“How you doin’, Cas?” he asks, opening his eyes with a small smile.

“Good,” Cas manages, and even though Dean’s a little cross-eyed from proximity, he can feel a slight smile on Cas’s face, too. Dean kisses it, because he can, and Cas sighs, his grip tightening on Dean’s shoulder. “Very — very good.”

“Good,” Dean parrots back at him, catching one last kiss and then bracing his hands on either side of Cas’s head. They probably look ridiculous, all pretzeled up like they are, but if Cas is good, then Dean is, too, and there’s something about being snug in Cas’s body, against him, Cas’s arms and legs all wrapped around him, all that skin against skin—

Yeah, Dean is more than _good,_ and on that thought, he lifts himself, drawing out, and pushes back in.

Cas breathes out, eyes falling shut, and Dean shifts his weight to one hand to touch his cheek.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Look at me.”

Cas opens his eyes immediately, gaze holding Dean’s, and Dean moves again.

Cas keeps his eyes open.

Dean maintains that pace, the slow withdraw and not-much-faster thrust back in, although it’s a mild form of torture to do so. Cas is restless, squirming underneath him, hips lifting as he tries to chase the connection, and the quiet little moans he keeps singing out are like siren song. That’s enough to get Dean’s blood rushing right over most rational thought on any day, but Cas is just staring up at him, hands moved up to grasp at his wrists, holding on while Dean slides into the welcoming clasp of his body. He can feel Cas tighten around every stroke, gripping him, pulling him back into slick heat even as he’s drawing out, and the pressure is unreal, has Dean’s rhythm faltering occasionally as he fights to keep his cool.

It’s probably unnecessary, the slowness, the gentleness, the persistent eye contact which should maybe be a little awkward — but Cas probably needs more slowness and gentleness in his life, and the awkward-but-not eye-contact isn’t really new for them, is it?

So Dean fucks him just like that, making sure time is the only thing he’s taking here, and lets himself get lost in the rhythm, in the feeling, because Cas is the best thing he’s ever felt and Dean knows he’s not always going to have that.

He kisses him plenty, slow, messy kisses Cas returns eagerly, eyes always finding Dean’s each time they pull apart, body subtly rolling into every movement, and Dean can’t even remember what it was like for the treehouse to be cold. It’s all so hot, and getting hotter, and Cas’s sounds are growing a little more desperate, his grip on Dean’s wrists becoming tighter, and even though it feels like they’ve been at this forever and he’s not sure how much longer he can hold on himself, Dean is a little sorry when he realizes it's probably time.

He moves, shifting to one hand again, and wraps his other hand around Cas’s cock, thumbing across the leaking tip and spreading it down his length till it’s slick in his grasp and Cas is moaning, bucking a little harder.

“Are you close, Cas?” he asks, though he knows he is, and Cas bites his lip, nodding.

“Are you ready to come?”

Cas hesitates for some reason, and then closes his eyes.

“Yes,” he whispers. “What about you?”

Dean breathes out a quiet laugh.

“Been ready. It’s so hard to hold on, Cas,” he mumbles, resting his cheek against Cas’s as he strokes him. “You feel so good, it’s unreal. You _sound_ so good.”

_You look so good. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe I ever got to have you like this._

Dean doesn’t say that. Those things are not really about the sex. Those things are something like a declaration, both damning and unwanted, and Dean’s not going to ruin this again, for either one of them.

Cas shivers, eyes still shut, and turns his head to kiss him.

“Then come, Dean.”

“Do you want me to—”

“In me. I — _oh_ —” Dean can’t help it. He _is_ close, and that breathless instruction has him instinctively jerking, thrusting into Cas a little harder than he has been.

“Sorry,” he pants, and Cas just squeezes around him.

“Do it again,” he whispers. “Let go, Dean. I want — I want to feel you.”

Dean can’t help the involuntary moan that escapes. Okay. If that’s what Cas wants, then Dean can do that.

It’s hard, balancing on one hand while his other arm is twisted between them, so Dean scoots his knees a little further forward, searching for better leverage, and startles at the sharp gasp Cas lets out once he finds it.

And, well — there it is. Dean’s mostly been avoiding it, is a little surprised Cas didn’t call him on that and demand some better attention, but he didn’t want that kind of intensity. He wanted it to last as long as it could, and it would have probably been over twenty minutes sooner if he hadn’t done it like he did.

Now, though — now it’s time. Dean can’t hold on that much longer, and he refuses to let go until he sees Cas come undone, so he settles into the new position, leaning back a little, and starts moving with purpose.

Cas’s heel grinds into his back on the first stroke.

“ _Fuck,_ ” he chokes out, hips rolling, and Dean tightens his grip on his cock, pulling as he shifts back and slams in again, right up against Cas’s prostate, judging by the sound he makes. “ _Dean — I —_ oh, _fuck,_ Dean, please— ”

Dean wastes no time in getting into it, stripping Cas’s cock and fucking into him in hard, filthy strokes, rhythm positively brutal compared to what it was. Cas is a mess underneath him, twisting and writhing and practically chanting Dean’s name, and it’s all Dean can do to focus, to hold back until he’s seen Cas through.

He knows he’s successful when Cas stops twisting, body locking up into tight, controlled shudders, words no more than harsh gasps, and Dean surges forward, again and again, eyes glued to Cas’s face.

“Come,” he hisses, because fuck is he close, and he _needs_ Cas to— “ _Come,_ Cas.”

Cas does, spills hot and messy all over their stomachs, over Dean’s hands, crying out and jerking beneath him for what feels like an eternity. Dean doesn’t let up his pace once, thrusting deep with every sharp twitch of Cas’s body and fucking him straight through his orgasm until he’s gasping, still convulsing with the aftershocks and clenching around Dean with every shiver.

The death grip of his fingers on Dean’s wrists finally loosens, and he weakly touches Dean’s face.

“Dean,” he whispers, eyes glazed, and that’s it. Dean pushes in once, twice, three more times, more of a grind than a thrust, and then he groans, burying his face in Cas’s neck as he comes deep inside him, brain a static fuzz as each scorching wave of pleasure rolls right through him. Cas clings to him, moans at the sensation, and Dean jerks inside of him, bearing down where Cas’s legs are still folded up against his chest, and jesus _fucking_ christ, it’s so good, _Cas_ feels so fucking good, Dean must be crushing him, cutting off his circulation, but Cas just holds onto him and makes the sweetest fucking noises as Dean rides it out, unable to stop himself from rutting forward even as he comes back down.

He feels exhausted and elated and fifty miles tall when he’s done, Cas’s shaking hands petting his hair and face, blue eyes hazy and mouth soft and red from all the kisses they’ve shared, and Dean wishes more than ever that he could figure out a way to keep this.

But he can’t. This, all of this — they’re running out.

He gently unfolds Cas, kisses him through his winces and much-less-happy groans, and then turns him on his side so Dean can wrap around him and pretend everything is fine.

***

Nobody interrupts them — at least, everybody’s old enough and polite enough to just turn around and go back inside if they did come out — and though Dean half-expects Cas to say ‘thanks’ and get dressed and hurry back inside for a snack or whatever, he stays put, curled up with Dean like there's nowhere else he wants to be.

It's confusing; Dean almost feels like he's missing something.

Anyway, the afterglow is strange, sad and bittersweet in a way that feels more post-mortem than post-coital, and it just compounds the feeling of not knowing what’s going on — of being afraid of the answer.

So Dean shoves it aside, focuses on how Cas feels, warm where Dean’s wrapped around him, and tries to think of pretty much anything else. Here with Cas, in a place he spent a shit-ton of time as a kid — it’s actually not that hard. In fact, thinking about it, about Cas waiting in the treehouse for him . . .

“Hey — Cas,” he says suddenly, bolder post-orgasm, he guesses. “How come you were okay, coming here by yourself?”

Cas shifts a little, though he doesn’t try to turn around to face Dean.

“What do you mean?”

“You know. When we were kids. You wouldn’t go home by yourself, but you could come here after you ate dinner.”

Cas is quiet for a moment.

“I don’t know,” he finally says. “It was just — different.”

“Different how?” Dean presses, because come _on._ Cas _hated_ walking back alone. He’d kind of wondered why he was fine walking to the treehouse, as a kid, but he’d been afraid to point it out to Cas, lest he decide to be too scared to do it anymore.

He can feel Cas shrug, a tiny movement of his shoulders before he relaxes again.

Cas seems tired, but pretty zen, and Dean pats himself on the back for that, weird afterglow or not.

“I guess . . . there was just something about — leaving you, that felt . . . unsafe. But if I was going to you — I don’t know. I did get scared, I just thought — I knew you’d be expecting me, and you’d know if something happened, and then — then you’d come get me.”

“Oh.” Dean’s not sure what else to say, because that’s — that — well, shit.

“What about you?” Cas says suddenly, tearing Dean away from his efforts to untangle his numerous feelings about that.

“Uh. What?” Is Cas asking why Dean wanted him to wait in the treehouse? Because now that Dean’s put that into context, that’s just awkward as fuck.

“You hugged me. Every day. Why?”

It takes Dean a while to respond, a little shocked that Cas is asking. That’s just — as weird as it must have been, Cas _never_ asked, and Dean never said anything, and not once have they ever talked about it before.

Dean assumed they never would.

“Uhhh,” he stalls, and he feels about thirteen all over again, irritated as hell because Sam wanted to finish his conversation with Cas and ended up accompanying them all the way back to the Novaks’ house. Now, Cas was used to the hugs at this point, looked at Dean expectantly once they got there, even though Sam was _right there,_ and no matter how weird Dean felt about it, he couldn’t bring himself to skip the hug that day.

Sam, of course, had a lot of fucking questions, and Dean would attribute that to him being nine, but the kid’s well into his twenties now and he still has a lot of fucking questions (hence why Dean came up to the treehouse in the first place.)

 _Why’d you hug him?_ Sam had asked, when they left. _Is he having a bad day? Should I have hugged him, too?_

Dean was dodgy and evasive and absolute shit at it, even though he was usually a pretty decent liar, had been trained by the best, because at no time did he think to prepare to answer questions like that.

Because even now, answering that question — well, it’s just _hard._

Cas is willing to wait, apparently, and Dean sighs, selfishly glad Cas can’t see his face.

“Well — I saw Sam do it.”

“That day at the park?”

“Yeah. Never occurred to me before, but — I don’t know. Just then, when he did it, I thought — honestly, I thought it wasn’t really fair, you know? You were _my_ best friend, and Sam was hugging you first, and — it just didn’t sit right with me. I felt like — hey, I wanna hug Cas, too. And since you let him, real patient, I figured . . . why not? Might as well give it a shot. And you let me, too, just like that. It, uh, it was nice. So I tried it again the next night, and the next, and every single night, you just . . . let me.”

Cas is quiet for a long time, and they lie there, still, just breathing.

Dean’s not sure why Cas wanted to know, but he figures the conversation is over, anyway.

And then Cas speaks again.

“I’d let you do anything,” he says quietly, and it’s not hyperbole, or a proclamation. It’s not suggestive or romantic or anything like that.

It’s clearly a confession, heavy with remorse, and it’s one of the worst things Dean has ever heard, because it just confirms that Cas _does_ love him, in his own way — so much so that he’ll make himself unhappy, just so Dean won't be.

Dean doesn’t know how to answer that, how to make it better, how to fix it — so he just holds Cas a little tighter and pretends he doesn’t know what choice that leaves him with.

Eventually, Sam comes out, tired of Dean’s bullshit, but clearly apprehensive about what they’re doing up there.

“Guys?” he calls. “Are you, um, are you coming back inside for dinner?”

Dean grins, the feeling that everything is falling down around him fading for a moment.

“Ohhh, yeah,” he moans loudly. “Fuck, yeah, Cas, harder!”

“ _Dude,_ ” Sam yelps, and Dean nudges Cas expectantly.

There’s a tired sigh.

“Oh, yes, Dean,” he yells dryly. “Exceptional work, I am fast approaching climax—”

Dean elbows him again, but it’s probably obvious from the way he’s laughing that he thinks Cas made the joke even better.

But isn’t that the problem here? Cas makes _everything_ better.

For Cas, though — Dean just makes everything worse.

“How is everybody?”

Dean side-eyes Sam pretty hard.

“Good. You’ll see ‘em all tomorrow.”

“Right, right.” Sam takes a long sip of his beer as they sit on the porch, watching Cas and Jo and Valencia play lawn bowls. Part of Dean wishes they were playing, too, but another part of him can see the game becoming increasingly vicious, and he doesn’t think he has the energy for that tonight. “Oh, hey. I saw the pictures from the latest Moondoor campaign. I miss that.”

And Dean doesn’t know _where_ Sam is going with this, but he knows he’s going _somewhere._

“Well, we miss having you,” he hedges, and Sam shrugs.

“Looks like you got new people.”

“Yeah.”

“Charlie’s getting to be really good friends with, um — what was it? Katya?”

Dean pauses mid-sip, then swallows.

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “She is.”

“Oh, nice. She seems cool.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s pretty,” he adds, like it’s an afterthought, and Dean frowns.

“I don’t think she and Charlie are gonna date.”

“Oh. Too bad.”

Dean relaxes, and then—

“What about you?”

“Excuse me?”

Sam shrugs, fiddling with the label of his beer.

“Are you . . . interested?”

“ _Dude,_ ” Dean sputters. “I’m with _Cas._ ”

Not that that officially makes a difference, even if it means a lot to Dean, but Sam shouldn’t know about that.

Sam hesitates.

“Right. Of course.”

But Dean’s not stupid, and in that moment, he _knows_ Sam knows.

“Alright, bitch. Who told you? Who _knows_?”

Sam scowls.

“That’s confidential. But since we’re talking about it—”

“Because _you_ brought it up!”

“What’s going on with that, Dean?” Sam asks, ignoring him in favor of looking at him with wide, searching hazel eyes. It’s godawful and Dean resents it. “Seriously. You didn’t even tell me about it, and don’t even _try_ to say it doesn’t bother you. I know you.”

Dean shrugs.

“’S’not a big deal.”

“You expect me to believe that.”

He shrugs again.

“I don’t expect you to do anything, Sammy. So, you know, _don’t._ ”

“I’m not going to. I’m just trying to understand why you asked him for that.”

Dean’s stomach feels weird, all of the sudden. The only way Sam would know how it went down is—

“Cas told you,” he says flatly, and Sam blinks.

“Well—”

“Jesus Christ. Since when do you call each other up and gossip about your feelings?”

Sam makes a face.

“First of all, Cas is like my brother. We talk, obviously. Second of all, you’re clearly upset about this. Why _did_ you ask him for that, anyway? Did you seriously — meet someone?”

Dean scowls, wishing he had a can instead of a bottle, all the better to crush between his fingers while pretending (non-seriously) it’s his little brother’s head.

“No. Like I fucking could, when I thought I had Cas,” he mutters, bitter. Sam makes a big, comical frowny-face, and for Dean’s second wish, he’d like some tape to keep the kid’s poor forehead smooth.

“Then why would you—”

“He cheated, okay? Or — or didn’t cheat, because it’s not like I ever said, but he had a lot of fun in New York and then he didn’t tell me about it, and he was being shifty as fuck when he got back so I _know_ he knew it wasn’t cool, and—” Dean waves a hand. “Here we are.”

“He — _really_? You’re sure?”

Dean sighs.

“Woke him up with a phone call, around noon. Heard two other people in bed with him before he shuffled outta the room, shut the door, and told me he was just brushing his teeth.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “And then when I asked about his night, he said he’d had dinner with colleagues and then gone back to his hotel. Nothin’ interesting.”

“Okay.” Sam looks extremely perturbed. “What did he say when you asked?”

Dean just gives him a look.

“If he wasn’t gonna tell me, I wasn’t gonna ask.”

Sam's brows practically launch themselves into the stratosphere, and he opens his mouth.

“And _besides_ ,” Dean hurries on. “It was bound to happen eventually. Better to — to rip the band-aid off early.”

“Right. Right, but — let’s say that’s how it went down. If you were so upset, why did you— ” he waves a hand. “Double-down on it?”

Dean sighs.

“Don’t you get it? New York — yeah, maybe I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been. This is _Cas,_ man. It’s who he is, and it wasn’t — it wasn’t really fair of me to ask him to change. I was just . . . trying to do right by him. And hey, at least this way, I know what to expect, right?”

Sam makes a funny noise at that, a cross between ‘hm’ and ‘ugh’ and a high-pitched tail of ‘ehhhh.’

Dean slaps him on the back, pretending he thinks he’s choking, and Sam swats him.

“Look, Sammy,” he says. “Just — don’t worry about it. Everything’s fine,”

Things are definitely not fine, and Dean’s pretty sure he knows what’s coming, but there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

If there was, Dean would be doing it.

“Okay. Okay, that’s — fair. But still — maybe you should talk to Cas again? You know, just . . . check in? See where he’s at?”

Dean looks him dead in the eye, serious.

“And in all your girly gossip time, did Cas say he didn’t want an open relationship?”

Sam’s mouth flattens.

“Maybe not _exactly,_ but he _did_ say—”

“There it is, Sam. Cas is a big boy, and if he doesn’t want something, _trust me —_ he’ll say so.”

“But if you’re the one asking—”

“Like that matters.” Dean snorts. “Listen, man. Cas is definitely taking advantage of the new policy, so if he had any issues, he’s over them. Don’t worry about it.”

“Really? He has?” Sam looks skeptical, which is honestly bizarre; _everyone_ knows about Cas and his legendary sex drive. If there’s nothing stopping him — why _wouldn’t_ he do it? “You’re _sure_?”

Dean thinks of lipstick smears and wafting cologne, of missing ties and wrecked hair, and his grip on his beer tightens.

“Positive.”

Sam is silent for a long moment, and then he sighs.

“Dean. I really think you should talk to him again.”

“Yeah, I’m good, thanks. First time was bad enough.”

Sam just gives him a sad, frustrated look, and nothing more is said.

Cas’s back kind of hurts now, but a part of him wants to go back, crawl inside that moment in the treehouse, and live there forever.

He couldn’t say how much time he’d spent as a child, watching Dean carefully tend to his modest hoard of strange treasures — using an eyeglass cloth on the little bluebird till it shone, honest-to-god _polishing_ the damn lighter, handling that key to the Impala with faraway eyes and a wistful smile — but well before he realized what kind of love it was that Cas felt, he knew he wanted to be counted among those treasures.

Sometimes, he just managed to convince himself he was.

Anyway, it’s been a long, long time since then, but Cas is apparently still just as compelled by the sight of Dean’s gentle hands and the sound of his somehow gentler words; and perhaps it was nostalgia, or perhaps everything else is finally getting to him, but Cas was hit with an overwhelming wave of _longing,_ and he couldn’t quite fight it.

And Cas _would_ have settled for being treated like a possession, today; to be handled like he belonged, with certainty, to Dean, like that was something Dean still wanted.

But like always, he wanted a lot more than he could bring himself to ask for, and even though he knows it was a lie, is afraid of the way things have spiraled and where they might be spiraling to, Dean figured it out. Dean was kind enough or feeling nostalgic enough to give it to him, and Cas is just proud of himself for retaining enough composure not to cry or do something stupid like tell Dean he loves him.

And that last thing — that was hard, because if Cas didn’t know better, he would have said that everything that happened there was Dean’s way of saying it first.

“So that’s a yes?” Valencia asks patiently, and Cas tears himself away from his thoughts.

“No.”

“You weren’t listening,” she points out, and Cas looks away guiltily.

“No, but I am pretty sure I heard something about Sam and a clown, and given that that’s a legitimate phobia, I believe you and Dean should be more sensitive about it.”

“I was being sensitive,” she protests. “I was being extremely sensitive. In fact, I was trying to enlist your help in alleviating his phobia by having all his dearest friends dress up as very friendly looking clowns and surprise him—”

“No,” Cas says again, stern, though it’s a struggle to keep his face straight. “If my therapist were here, she’d give you a lecture on the importance of ‘trust’ in a relationship.”

Not that Pamela is his therapist anymore, really. She occasionally leaves him messages, but Cas is too much of a coward to listen to them.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Val asks blankly, and he finally lets himself smile, because he knows she would never terrify Sam on purpose, and certainly not for her own amusement.

No, Valencia can tell he’s sad, and she’s trying to make him laugh, because she can also tell he won’t want to talk about it.

“It is a mystery,” he agrees. “I don’t know why I thought of it.”

“That’s the spirit. Do you want the red clown wig or the pink one?”

“Pink makes me look sallow.”

“The wrong pink, maybe.”

“I’ll leave it up to you, then.”

She grins.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Valencia scoots a little closer, snuggling into the sofa against his shoulder, and for a few quiet moments they listen to what sounds like a vehement argument about pie happening in the kitchen.

“Oh, dear,” Cas mutters. “I think Jo is asking for a birthday cake.”

“Cake is delicious,” Val agrees.

“Dean is very sensitive.”

There’s a pause.

“He is,” she agrees easily, but gives him Serious eyes. “You are, too, I think.”

“I am a cold, cactus-cat thing, according to Dean,” he returns dryly. “I am not sensitive.”

“What? Kitties are very sensitive,” she argues. “And cacti hoard water, which is kind of like keeping their tears inside, if you squint.”

Cas squints at her, and she laughs.

“You have questions for me,” he says eventually, and she shrugs.

“Sam’s been pacing holes in the floor. We had our first noise complaint, and it was very damaging to my ego that it wasn’t for noisy sex.”

“And you think that has something to do with me.”

She shrugs again.

“Does it?”

Cas remains silent.

“It’s okay,” she tells him, resting her head on his shoulder. “I am _burning_ with curiosity, and I think Sam would _really_ like to tell me about it, but I understand. Just let me know if you need anything.”

Cas nods.

And then he can’t help it, because he didn’t talk about it with his therapist and he was too embarrassed to tell Meg and Tracy — not to mention he didn’t want to hear Meg rage about how hateful Dean is, because he’s _not —_ but Valencia won’t judge him and she probably won’t overreact, either, and Cas—

A part of Cas would kind of like to have someone to talk to.

“What would you do if Sam asked for an open relationship?”

Valencia blinks.

“Are you trying to make a move on my — roommate?”

“Your roommate,” he repeats, side-eyeing her, and she lifts her head, giving him a pained look.

“My roommate. Of whom I am extremely fond.”

“I, too, am extremely fond of him, but no, I am not trying to make a move.”

“Ah.” She considers this. “Well. Honestly? My first instinct is murder, a lot of it, I’m not quite sure who, but — _most_ of me is a rational adult, and I understand that that’s not reasonable. Or sane.”

“We are who we are,” Cas offers solemnly, and she sighs.

“It’s annoying, though. Anyway. Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about that, for now.” She pauses. “But why do you?”

He hesitates, shooting a quick glance behind him to make sure everyone else is still preoccupied in the kitchen.

“Dean, um. He asked me for one.”

Valencia stills.

“But-” she starts, and Cas tilts his head. “Okay. Right. Well, obviously, I am not dating Dean, and you know him much better, but if I had to put my money somewhere, it’d be wherever it says Dean is even more murder-y than I am.”

Cas shrugs.

“Dean and I have a very different relationship than any of his others.”

“Ye-es,” she says slowly. “Sure. But I would have said that would make him . . . _more_ murder-y. You know?”

“Not at all,” he says apologetically, and she sighs.

“Okay. Cool. So, not casting aspersions on anyone, or suggesting anything about anybody’s communication skills, but you’re sure you understoo—”

“I’ve had this talk with Sam, already,” he informs her, and she nods, forehead creased.

“Oh. Okay.” She’s silent for another moment, and then: “Sam gives great advice, really, really awesome advice, but sometimes he doesn’t at all, so could you tell me-”

“Valencia,” he interrupts her. “It’s fine.”

She shoots him an unimpressed look.

“It is not fine.”

“No,” he admits. “But I don’t think there’s anything I can do. I don’t know what I did, in the first place.”

“I doubt you did anything,” she mutters. “At least, nothing _that_ bad. No, I’m sure this is Dean’s fault.”

“It’s not his fault if he wants something different.” _If he doesn’t want me._

And that’s true, but Cas has a hard time not resenting it.

“Does he, though?”

“He made it very clear.” Cas folds his arms, morose. “I think — honestly, I think he slept with someone else while I was in New York.”

That part’s still deeply upsetting, somehow. Logically, it shouldn’t matter more than whatever happens in Moondoor or on bar outings with Benny, but somehow — it does.

“You’d only been dating for a month.”

“It had been a long time since Dean’s last relationship. He was accustomed to being able to—” Cas waves a hand. “Go out, as he pleased.”

“Sure. That makes sense. Sort of,” she adds. “Except also not?”

Cas hesitates.

“There’s a, um, a girl. Katya.”

Valencia blinks.

“Tall, willowy brunette with sneaky biceps?”

“You’ve seen the pictures.”

“Yup. What about her?”

“She’s the girl, last fall, that Dean met at the bar, when we had that awful date.”

“I vaguely recall. How is she still around, again?”

“She managed to give him her phone number,” Cas says darkly, and Valencia squeezes his arm. “Anyway, she’s — well, as you can probably tell, she’s exactly his type.”

“Sure, but so are you.”

Cas huffs.

“I never really expected Dean to end up with a man, even one who wasn’t me.”

She leans back.

“I am tentatively pissed off at Dean, right now, but I still think maybe you should give him more credit than that.”

“Maybe,” he says, but he doesn’t believe it. “Regardless, they’ve become — good friends. I think she might have been the one that he — while I was gone.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“I didn’t want to start a fight,” Cas admits, staring down at his lap. “If I make him angry-”

“Yeah, no. Please don’t ever start a sentence like that.”

“It’s true. I don’t want him to break up with me.”

Valencia buries her face in her hands with a soft, ‘Oh, God.’

“Although, he might, anyway.”

She lifts her head.

“What makes you say that?”

Cas shrugs.

“Things just — they’re getting worse all the time.” He takes a deep breath. “He told me he was unhappy. And he meant it. He’s, uh. He’s drinking more than ever, and I don’t — I have no idea what to do. Whatever I do, or don’t do, it doesn’t seem to make any difference.”

And this — this is really why he wants to talk to someone. Pamela may have had good insight, but she was primarily focused on fixing Cas, a thing Cas isn’t even sure is possible and certainly doesn’t have time for right now.

What he _needs_ is to fix his relationship with Dean. And since he can’t figure it out himself, he needs someone else to tell him how.

Valencia is silent for a long time.

“It could be that it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“That’s even worse. I’m his partner. I should — I should be able to make him feel better.” He sighs. “Not that I’ve ever been good at that.”

Valencia crawls a little closer and hugs him.

“You’re great at that.”

“Thank you,” he mumbles against her hair. “But your friendly biases sadly do not change anything. I just — I can’t seem to give him what he needs.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.” Cas thinks back to that session with Pamela, where Dean explained the real reason his relationships failed, and he wonders why he ever presumed to be different. “No one before me was able to do it; why did I think I could?”

Valencia holds onto him for a little while longer, and it’s nice, so completely lacking in playful aggression that Cas knows she must really feel sorry for him.

“If you won’t talk to him,” she says eventually, “Am I at least allowed to?”

“No,” he says firmly, and she nods.

“I am extremely fond of you, also, but this is kind of terrible.”

“Indeed,” he sighs.

And no, Val wasn’t able to tell him what to do, but Cas still feels a little better.

Not a lot — but a little.

“Cas looks healthy,” Ellen says after dinner, supervising Dean’s dish-scrubbing like he’s sixteen and helping out in the bar kitchen again.

Dean pretends to focus on the plate, but he can _totally_ see her and Bobby making eye-contact right now. They know they’re not subtle, right?

“Yep. Bobby thought so, too.”

“You cookin’ for him?”

“Someone’s got to.”

She nods, approving.

“Still. That someone doesn’t have to be you.”

“I guess.”

But Dean wishes it did. Wishes Cas actually were like a cat, had no choice but to come back home, if only for Dean to put out some goddamn dinner.

Which — yeah, maybe he should be seeing Pamela _twice_ a week.

“Although,” she says, and he braces himself, because he remembers the sink lecture from last Thanksgiving, and the worst part about _that_ one?

Ellen was _right._

“Yeah?”

“You both look like somebody died,” she says bluntly. “Bobby and I weren’t even sure which one of you to try talkin’ to.”

Dean sinks in on himself, a little.

“Guess you figured it was my fault, then.”

Ellen just gives him a look.

“ _Actually,_ we weren’t thinking in terms of blame at all. But Cas there is even worse at talking than you are, so we’ll start here.” She narrows her eyes. “Somethin’ we should know about?”

Dean looks away.

“It’s between Cas and me,” he mumbles, and Ellen sighs.

“If that’s how you want it,” she agrees. “But I don’t like to see my kids fighting.”

Dean’s stomach is a fucking anvil, and not even surprisingly-strong Cas could probably pick it back up.

“Well, lucky you. We’re not fighting.”

“Breakin’ each other’s hearts, more like,” she mutters, and pushes off the counter. “Don’t talk to anybody else, if you don’t want to, Dean, but talk to him, okay?”

Which is easier said than done, because Dean knows they’re just about to the breaking point, to the end of the line, and when they get there, there’s only going to be one thing to say.

He’d like to put it off as long as possible, thanks.

“Sure,” he says under his breath, and thankfully, Ellen lets it go.

And Dean appreciates that everyone is so damn invested in his and Cas’s happily-ever-after, but the truth is, it’s not gonna happen, and it’s Dean’s own fault for talking Cas into trying in the first place.

Because at the end of the day, this is Dean’s biggest failure yet, the one that’ll end up costing him the most — and as nice as it is that they care?

He’d rather lick his wounds in private.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit Content Tags: semi-public sex (they're in a treehouse, assume all their neighbors have colds and are staying inside where they can't hear anything), rimming, blowjobs, anal fingering, anal sex, bottom!Cas/top!Dean, barebacking.


	11. if you leave me now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: unhealthy coping mechanisms (alcohol), please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Chapter title from _If You Leave Me Now_ \- Foxes.
> 
> Thank you. ♡

“I was right,” Dean tells Pamela, first thing, when he goes for his appointment Monday.

She blinks.

“Hi, Dean. How was your weekend?” she asks pleasantly, and he scowls.

“Fine.” And it was, mostly, except for the part where he finally saw the ending and _fucking hated it._

Which is just unfair; the weekend should have been awesome. Jo had a great birthday, Dean saw Bobby and Ellen and all of his friends, saw _Sam,_ and had intense treehouse sex with Cas.

Perfect, right?

Wrong. Everybody wanted a piece of the Dean-Winchester’s-Problems pie, and the intense treehouse sex culminated in heart-wrenching confessions that left Dean with a task he’s _dreading_ , is still hoping he can somehow find a way out of.

Twelve-year old him had the right idea; Dean wasn’t it for Cas, was never going to be, and he shouldn’t have tried to work things to make it so.

“I see. And what do you think you were right about?”

“Cas doesn’t need—” Dean waves a hand. “All that.”

She nods.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Nothing. And it’s not important.”

She opens her mouth.

“Anyway, I know I asked you about — generic couple stuff, but — Cas talks to you. And I know you probably don’t even talk about me, most of the time, but — but if there’s somethin’ I’m doing wrong, or something you _know_ I should be doing — if he said anything—”

“If he had said anything, I couldn’t tell you, anyway,” Pamela interrupts, frowning. “That’s not how this works.”

Dean grits his teeth.

“You’re a _doctor._ You’re supposed to — to do what’s best for your patient, right? And me not fucking this up anymore? That’s what’s best for _both_ of us! So just — if you _know_ something, just _tell me._ ”

She purses her lips,

“No.”

“Why _not?_ ”

“Because of a little something called _patient-confidentiality laws._ And you know what, Dean? Even if I _could_ tell you, I wouldn’t. Because it is _not_ what’s best for you.”

“How the hell do you figure?”

“Dean,” she says seriously. “I could tell you — _both of you —_ everything, right now, and even if it fixed things for a little while, _you would still have problems.”_

“So — so what? You think it’s Cas and I, together? You really — you think we can’t make it?”

It’s not news, no, but he is still trying to get used to it; and every time the thought crosses his mind, it feels like a piece of his soul withers away and dies.

Having the trained professional confirm it?

Well, there goes another chunk.

Pamela just looks _frustrated._

“I have no idea if you and Cas can make it. What I do know, is that you could break up now and see other people, and you’d have problems then, too. Because the problem, Dean — the _real_ problem, that you _both_ have — is that you cannot communicate and you won’t even try. And until you learn to do that? You won’t have a successful relationship with each other or anybody else.”

Dean needs a minute to process this, because yeah, he knows he’s a fuckup, but he wouldn’t have said the same about Cas, and he wouldn’t have said that was even close to the top of the list of things wrong with himself.

Whatever his face is doing, it makes Pamela soften.

“Look. For what it’s worth, if you can learn how to do that — I do think you and Cas have something very special. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know you both, and who you are, even discounting your history together — you have a unique opportunity to be very, very happy.” She catches his eye, serious. “I would be sad to see you waste it.”

“Not as sad as me,” he mutters, defeated, because not for the first time, Pamela is failing to understand.

Which means she’s failing to give him answers, and Dean — well, Dean’s at the end of his rope.

All that’s left to do is fall.

Cas knew he was asking for too much, with his stupid treehouse stunt. He _knew_ it, and he did it anyway, and through it all he forgot that just because Dean Winchester gives you what you want doesn’t mean you’re not going to pay for pushing him, one way or another.

All week, Cas pays.

Every single fucking day, Dean works late, comes home, makes dinner, and sips his whiskey until bedtime — looking at and speaking to Cas as little as earthly possible, all the while.

Dinner doesn’t happen at the table. There’s certainly no after-dinner television-watching; Dean takes his laptop into the bedroom the moment the dishes are done, and when Cas tests that, on Thursday, taking his work to bed, Dean remains perched on the sofa in the living room.

Dean’s avoiding him.

And even if he wasn’t, Cas wouldn’t know what to do, here. It’s worse than any point in their friendship (barring the ten months of zero contact), than any point in their _fake_ relationship, and given that Cas had no fucking clue when it came to either of _those_ things, this is laughably far above his paygrade.

He could call his therapist, of course, but if she couldn’t help him _before_ it got this bad, she certainly can’t help him now.

No one can, because the problem is _Cas_. The problem is that Cas is nothing like the person Dean imagined being with, for _any_ amount of time, let alone forever, and as much as Cas believes that Dean loves him — he’s also starting to believe that John Winchester was right.

That it doesn’t make him special, and at some point, Dean will move on from him, anyway.

And Cas was a fool to think otherwise.

Fool that he is, of course, it’s a complete surprise to him when Dean showers after work Friday evening and comes out of the bedroom dressed to go out, duffle bag in hand.

It shouldn’t be, given the way the week has gone, but still, he stares blankly as Dean sets the bag down and starts putting on his shoes.

“Are you . . . going somewhere?” he ventures. Dean looks up, startled, which is just — surely he didn’t expect Cas to just ignore this?

“Uh. Yeah, gonna spend the weekend with a friend.”

Cas processes that for a quarter of a second, or something like it, before he blurts out:

“What friend?”

Dean gives him a strange look, and Cas hopes it’s because Dean’s going to play games with Charlie, or to console Benny because his new girl-thing, as Dean called her, has spurned his advances, and maybe he already mentioned this and Cas is actually losing his mind.

It’s not.

“Katya,” he says instead, like it’s nothing, and Cas stares, because—

Because _Katya._ Dean is going to spend the _weekend_ with Katya.

Is that a thing, in an open relationship? Not only can you sleep with whoever you want, you can start spending weekends with them, too? Are you allowed to take vacations with other people, as well? Should Cas have asked for a fucking manual, when Dean first brought it up?

Or is this unanticipated cowardice on Dean’s part? Is he trying to break up with Cas the same way he does everything else, which is by refusing to fucking talk about it and hoping everyone around him understands anyway? Is Cas supposed to — to get angry, here? To tell Dean he’s going too far and it’s time to break up?

Is that what Dean _wants_?

Whatever Dean’s after, Cas takes too long trying to figure it out. The only thing he can say for certain is that Dean wants to spend the weekend at _Katya’s,_ and by the time Cas has even _begun_ to find the words to respond to that, Dean is already on his way.

Without so much as a fucking ‘bye, Cas, have a nice weekend here all by yourself wondering why I don’t want you.’

But that’s typical _,_ isn’t it? That’s why Cas should have known, no matter how badly he wanted Dean, he couldn’t have him. Because that’s what Cas _does_. He waits; he’s always waiting, will always be waiting, because Dean has other people and other places, people and places for playing and people and places to call home.

Cas, on the other hand — Cas is just — adrift. There is no family home for him to go back to; he can crash Meg and Tracy’s poster-worthy example of domestic bliss all he wants, and he can solicit advice from friends and sisters who have long since moved on and away from him, but at the end of the day, Dean is all Cas has, all he’s really ever had.

And while not knowing how to hold onto that was scary — facing the fact that he may not be _able_ to is debilitating.

So Cas stays in and does what he does best.

He waits.

Two things happened the day Dean turned sixteen years old; two things that, if you’d asked him the day before, he’d have said would _never_ happen.

First of all, his Dad came to town on the _actual day,_ pretty much sober, and after a suspiciously pleasant afternoon eating pie and listening to his Dad tell stories about his work, he _gave Dean the fucking Impala._

Just like that, he handed the keys over, mostly no strings attached, and Baby was all his, for as long as he was willing to treat her right. Dean loved that car truly, madly, and deeply, as they say, and the years apart had done nothing to diminish his ardor.

And by some miracle, even though he was still an irresponsible, careless kid, he got her anyway.

The second thing, however, was even more surprising.

John was still there just after dinner, not that drunk and in a pretty good mood, besides, and Dean was about ready to call it the best birthday _ever,_ though he knew his dad was unpredictable and things could go south at any moment.

Dean’s birthday or not, though, Cas had to go home, and it didn’t even occur to Dean not to walk him there, as per usual.

“Where you goin’, Dean?” his father asked, just as Dean was reaching for his coat, Cas already bundled up and ready to go.

Dean froze.

“Uh.” He’s not sure what stopped him, when everybody knew he always walked Cas home, when it had never been a problem before; but somehow, his instincts told him John wasn’t going to appreciate that, wouldn’t understand it, and might even get kinda pissed about it.

Not that Dean was sure why he thought that.

But even if his Dad did get ugly about it — there was no way Dean could send Cas home on his own.

“I’d like to speak to my son for a minute, kid,” John said before Dean could answer, jerking his head at Cas.

Cas said nothing, glancing toward Dean.

“Uh, Cas, wait for me outside?”

And he hesitated, fixing Dean with a sharp, inscrutable look, but then he nodded and stepped out the door.

When Dean turned back to his father, he was frowning.

“Why’s he need to wait for you?”

Dean swallowed, willing himself to act normal.

“Oh, I left some stuff at his house.”

“Hm.”

“What’s up, Dad?” Dean pressed, knowing he was pushing it, but also acutely aware of Cas standing out in the cold January night.

John studied him, then shrugged.

“I was thinking, son — maybe it’s time you came with me.”

Dean stared, uncomprehending.

“Came with you where?”

John rolled his eyes.

“Don’t play stupid. When I leave — why don’t you come along? You’re old enough now, I think.” He smiled, a rare thing on John Winchester’s face, looking genuinely pleased with himself. “You got your own car, after all. Hell of a car, too; you’re practically a man.”

Dean’s mouth fell open, not quite able to believe what he was hearing.

“You mean — you want me to come with you? Like, on a trip, or—”

“For good,” John confirmed, and Dean’s brain just kind of blanked out for a bit, because — shit, he’d been waiting _years_ for this, and he’d given up on it ever happening.

Dean had half a mind to accuse his dad of being some kind of impostor.

It was strange, though; once the shock wore off, once he’d really processed the fact that Dad was back in town and he was finally asking Dean to come with him — Dean felt a lot different than when his Dad offered him the Impala.

Certainly, he didn’t get that rush of elation. In fact, aside from a weird sort of relief and satisfaction that hey, maybe his Dad _did_ want him around after all, the idea of taking off and leaving everything behind was . . .

Not as appealing as it should be.

“What about Sam?” he blurted, and his Dad hesitated, scanning Dean’s face.

“We’ll take him with us.”

Dean relaxed a little, but—

“What about school?”

John gave him an impatient look.

“Drop out.”

And Dean — Dean knew he wasn’t that clever, and he mostly just did all his homework to make Cas happy, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little proud of his grades. In light of that, the idea of dropping out seemed kind of . . .

Well, it just didn’t sit right with him. He found himself thinking about it, about how disappointed Bobby and Ellen would be, how Cas would give him the Sad Eyes, and—

And _Jesus,_ what about _Cas_? Sam was one thing, but no way in _hell_ would his Dad let Cas come along, and even if he would, Cas would _never_ drop out of school and go with Dean.

And shit, Dean had been waiting for this moment for years, had given up on it ever happening, and maybe in another life, he could be happy quitting school and hitting the road to go take down bad guys with his dad, but in this one? Even with his father’s expectant face right in front of him, he just — he _couldn’t_.

“Maybe — maybe I should wait? ‘Til I finish school, y’know? ‘Cause then Sam’ll be a little older, too — I mean, right now we’d have to worry about enrolling him and stuff, and . . . seems like it’d be a hassle.”

John said nothing for a long time, just looked at Dean for what couldn’t have been more than a minute, but felt like hours.

“Alright,” he said eventually, shrugging. “Got a point, there.”

Dean fought to keep the relief from showing, because he knew if his Dad fought him about it, if his Dad insisted—

He’d be leaving everything — _everyone —_ behind, whether he liked it or not.

“Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you don’t really wanna deal with all that. Later, though.”

John nodded, eyes far away and thoughtful.

“Yeah. Later.” He picked up his glass. “Well, better go get whatever you forgot before your little friend gets frostbite.”

Dean stiffened, horrified; Cas must be fucking _freezing,_ if he was even still outside.

A part of him wondered why his Dad insisted on having that conversation now — especially since it looked like _he_ hadn’t forgotten Cas might be waiting — but Dean dismissed it. The important thing was to get Cas home ASAP.

And when Dean stepped out and Cas was still there, waiting patiently, even though Dean knew he wasn’t scared to walk home alone anymore and this was a huge waste of his time — he couldn’t help but think, for some reason, that he’d _definitely_ made the right choice.

That was a long time ago, though; that was back when Dean was being selfish, was only ever thinking about what he wanted, instead of what was good for Cas.

He’s learned since then, though, and right now? He wonders if maybe he _should_ have gone.

If maybe — just maybe — Cas would have been better off without him.

By the weekend, Dean breaks.

Cas remains oblivious the whole time, pretty much ignoring Dean, probably because they’re back to civilization and he can find someone else to indulge his random afternoon cravings.

Dean, though — Dean swears he can _feel_ himself going insane, turning the problem over and over in his head and coming to the same awful conclusion every time.

And it doesn’t help that Cas is there all the fucking time, because Dean can only stay at work so late and as soon as he gets home, he has to try and think when the source of all his angst is sitting five feet away, hard at work translating shit and busy not needing anything from Dean, as per usual.

So by Friday, he’s decided the only thing for it is to take some time off and get away, to try and sort his shit out from a reasonable distance, like maybe that’ll make it any easier. Charlie gives a hard pass, because ‘deal with your shit, Winchester,’ and Benny is going on a fucking day-long _hike_ with his new girlfriend — which is hilarious, because after that one time they went camping with Cas and got lost in the woods for what felt like a fucking year, Benny swore he was never doing anything like that again.

Anyway, Jo just laughs and hangs up when he calls her, Ash is out of town, Liz is too suspicious about why Dean suddenly wants to spend the weekend watching cooking shows with her, and finally he gets so desperate he calls _Garth._

Garth is pleased as punch to have a guys’ weekend, at first, but when Dean has to admit that Cas won’t be coming, too, the dude acts like his parents just announced they’re divorcing.

And then Dean remembers that he has a _new_ friend, a friend who probably won’t bat an eye if Dean wants to spend the weekend marathoning Dr. Sexy without his boyfriend, who she knows doesn’t like the show as well; so Dean buys some Benadryl and calls up Katya, and just like that, he’s good to go.

There’s a weird moment, before he leaves, when Cas, who’s hardly said a word to him all week pulls himself away from his book long enough to ask where Dean’s going, like he cares, but when Dean tells him, Cas just kind of stares and then doesn’t even say goodbye.

Which — jesus, when did things get so _bad_?

Anyway, turns out Katya likes whiskey just as much as Dean, and she and her cats welcome him into their home with open arms. Dean doesn’t think too much of it at first, but by the time they’re an entire season in and almost certainly drunk besides, the affectionate little furballs are a definite distraction.

“I think they like you better than me,” Katya complains, frowning at the pile in his lap, and Dean laughs, although it kind of makes him sad, too.

“Well, at least _some_ cats love me, right?”

She gives him a funny look, but then the opening theme ends and it’s back to finding out if the mysterious new Dr. Kayla Vorki is secretly overdosing patients.

(She’s not, but her presumed-dead evil twin is.)

Anyway, they make it through two seasons, most of the bottle he brought over — friends who drink with you and don’t ask questions are Dean’s favorite kind — and after they nearly consume two pizzas between them, Katya suggests they call it a night.

She pushes back the coffee table and helps him set up the sofa bed, and with a tired salute, bids him goodnight.

Two fluffy cats join him on the sofa, though, and it’s a much-needed comfort as he lies there in the dark, decently drunk and having spent the day with half his mind on this thing with Cas. Now that there’s no Dr. Sexy to watch and no Katya to debate with, though, Dean’s brain has nothing left to distract itself with.

Things Dean knows:

Cas is not happy. Dean doesn’t make him happy.

Cas wants to sleep with other people and is perfectly content doing so.

Cas doesn’t want affection from Dean, physical or otherwise.

Cas doesn’t even seem to want to talk to him, anymore.

Which, no matter how he looks at it or tries to reason it out, sounds like a guy who really doesn’t want to be in a relationship with Dean.

_I’d let you do anything._

But he loves Dean, because they’re best friends and Dean’s pushed Cas into trying to reciprocate his fucked up attachment to him, so he’s not going to be the one to leave, not if he thinks Dean wants him to stay.

And fuck, Dean wants him to stay. Dean wants Cas to stay even more than he wanted Cas there in the first place, and now that he’s glimpsed what it could be like, even if that _was_ a fanciful, rose-colored lie — letting Cas go is going to be a hundred times harder than not having him in the first place. Every time he thinks about it, his body gets all cold and his teeth hurt and his hands shake with jitters and it’s just — how is he going to survive the real thing?

He’s not, probably. And Pamela can say any future relationships will fail because Dean ‘can’t communicate,’ whatever the fuck that means, but nope. All Dean’s relationships from before, and all the ones he may or may not try from here on out — they’re going to fail because they’re not with Cas, and Dean’s not sure what it’s like to not want Cas, even though he did a pretty good job pretending for years _._

Anyway — it takes a while to fall asleep.

Sunday afternoon, Katya kicks him out.

Like, literally _drags_ Dean off the sofa and hauls him to the front door.

“ _Jesus,_ someone eats their wheaties. Aw, fuck, Mr. Potato Head, don’t cry,” he adds, wincing at the plaintive mewls from the sofa. “Katya — Katya, look at that, I gotta stay, he needs me!”

Sandy joins in the chorus at that moment, and Dean stares at the sofa, miserable with guilt.

“ _They_ need me,” he amends, and she lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“Well, _tough._ I’m kicking you out, okay? It’s been super fun — and I do mean that, even though I have never seen a grown man sulk so hard in my _life,_ but not only are we out of whiskey, _I miss my cats!_ And also, Dean?” she adds, leaning in and holding his gaze, eyes fierce, “ _I kind of ship it._ So while I cherish your friendship and I’m happy to be there for you in times of crisis, it’s time to go talk to your goddamn boyfriend. Okay?”

Dean blinks unhappily.

“Can I at least sober up? I don’t wanna leave Baby behind. And if I tell everybody I was at your house they’ll be too mad to gimme a ride.”

Katya draws back, perplexed

“What? Why would that make them mad?”

“’Cause they’d think we, you know. Like at the bar when we met.”

Katya opens her mouth, then shuts it, clearly thinking.

“But Cas said— ” she starts, and Dean lurches upward, struggling out of her hold — which is really fucking hard, actually. What the hell does she _do_ for exercise, wrestle _bears_?

“What? You talked to Cas? When? What’d he say?”

She makes a face.

“Moondoor. And he kind of — he indicated that you guys weren’t . . . exclusive?”

“Indicated,” Dean repeats, brain working furiously. “The hell does that mean? How’d he — how’d he indicate?”

“Well, he basically said I was free to try and sleep with you, but—” she starts, squinting, and Dean sags, because here’s just more proof that Cas doesn’t give a fuck what Dean does.

“Yeah. Yeah, you are. But I’m still gonna say no,” he adds. “Like, I should say yes, because you— ” he waves his arm. “And you wrestle bears.”

“Wait, wha—”

“But I still — I mean. It’s gonna be a while, you know? Before I can do that with, uh, with somebody who’s not — Cas.”

“I don’t wrestle bears,” she says quickly. “That being said — if you don’t want to sleep with other people and Cas doesn’t want to sleep with other people, why are you . . . sleeping with other people?”

Dean snorts.

“Cas wants to sleep with other people. Cas _is_ sleeping with other people. It’s his — favorite fuckin’ thing in the world, you know? Which I knew, comin’ in, but I just — forgot, I guess.”

She scowls.

“Wait, so — _he_ wants to sleep with other people but he practically bit my head off when he thought _you —_ what a _dick_!” she exclaims, and Dean sighs, reaching down to pet Mr. Potato Head, who has finally come to his aid.

“He’s not a dick,” he insists, although he feels like this was an abrupt thing for Katya to say.

“Oh, he is. Go home and tell him we — we — roleplayed Dr. Sexy all weekend!” she declares, thinking seriously. “And tell him I let _you_ be Dr. Sexy.”

Dean frowns.

“You mean you wouldn’t?”

She scoffs.

“We’d take turns, obviously.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” he agrees, warming to the idea. “You’d make a great Dr. Sexy, Katya.”

She squeezes his arm.

“You, too.”

“You could have been a doctor,” he adds, gathering Mr. Potato Head into his lap. “You’re really smart. Like, look at Mr. Potato Head. He looks _just like a potato_!”

Katya nods enthusiastically, though as soon as Dean’s relaxed, she scoops Mr. Potato Head up and holds him against her chest possessively.

“Yes, my cat does look just like a potato. _My_ cat,” she repeats, and he gives her a strange look.

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Okay.” She sighs, burying her nose in Mr. Potato Head’s super soft kitty head. Dean’s a little jealous, even though he knows he got to snuggle the cats pretty much all weekend.

It’s just that, even if Dean would rather bury his face in _his_ super soft cat’s head, he doesn’t have the kind of cat that snuggles.

Pretty soon, he’s not gonna have any cats at all.

A fresh wave of grief hits him, and he slumps back onto the floor. Maybe Katya will loan him Mr. Potato Head or Sandy while he recovers. He’d loan _her_ a cat if she had to break up with the love of her life.

Well, not his big cat, he amends. Dean wants his big cat to be all his.

Then again, that selfishness is one of the reasons things have gotten so shitty, isn’t it?

“Oh, God,” Katya mumbles. “Okay, Dean. Come with me to the sofa and — sleep it off, I guess. You can go home this evening.”

Dean nods, and when he doesn’t move for a moment, Katya, hooks her arms beneath his shoulders and drags him all the way back to the sofa.

“Thank you,” he says, once she’s tucked him in.

“You’re welcome. I am kind of drunk, also, maybe? So I’m not mad at you, yet.” She crawls onto the other side of the sofa bed, curling up next to Sandy. “But if you try to steal one of my cats, we’re not friends anymore.”

“I would never,” he promises, solemn, although stealing one of her cats sounds like a pretty good idea, right now.

Not long after that, he falls asleep.

Katya lets him use the shower before he leaves, but Dean still makes it back home before ten, which means there’s not a chance in hell Cas is asleep.

He’s not. He’s working at the coffee table, some nonsense cartoon up on Hulu, and he doesn’t say a word when Dean walks in. Even when Dean takes off his shoes and pretends to accidentally drop one of the heavy boots, resulting in a loud thunk, Cas doesn’t even _look_ at him, let alone speak.

It’s an acute form of despair, one he’s been trying to avoid since childhood, and suddenly, Dean’s pretty sure he’s out of time. There’s no more thinking to be done, no more point in waiting, and certainly, Dean doesn’t think he can stand another night of coming home to Cas when it’s clear Cas doesn’t care if he’s there or not.

It’s time, for both of them, to just — let go.

Dean forces himself to walk over, instead of going to hide in the bedroom, like he wants to.

“Hey, Cas.”

Cas grunts, shuffling a few papers around and scribbling forcefully. Dean knows a moment’s doubt, at that — Cas is clearly in the middle of something and now is obviously not a good time — but he brushes it aside.

It’s gotta be now. Cas can look forward to a nice, long future of not having to worry about Dean interrupting his work as soon as they get this over with, but until then — work will have to wait.

He picks up the remote and turns the TV off.

“I was watching that,” Cas snaps, and Dean sighs, gripping the sofa-back.

“Sorry. But I — we need to talk.”

Cas freezes, and Dean waits anxiously until finally, Cas turns around, expression thunderous.

 _Fuck’s sake,_ he wants to say. _You can finish your cartoon in five minutes if it’s that important to you._

But this isn’t a fight, and Dean doesn’t want to make it one. They’re best friends first, like Pamela said, and all Dean’s trying to do is what’s best for them both, what’s best for _that_ relationship.

“’We need to talk,’” Cas repeats flatly, gripping the edge of the sofa. “And what do we need to talk about?”

Dean swallows. He can do this. He can. It’s for the best. Cas’ll be relieved, and Dean will — will get over it.

Or something like that.

“I think, uh. I think — I mean, things have been . . . you know, whatever, so — so maybe we should . . .” God. God _damn_ it, he’s been preparing for this all fucking weekend, all fucking _week,_ and he knows it has to happen; why can’t he just _say_ it?

Cas just stares at him, expression evening out into something terrifyingly blank.

He doesn’t say anything.

But why would he? This is on Dean.

He takes a deep breath.

“We should break up.”

Cas’s face twitches, but beyond that — nothing.

Okay. That’s — yeah, okay. Dean should have expected that. After all, if this was something Cas was gonna get upset over, it wouldn’t be happening, would it?

He’s silent, staring at Dean, and Dean wonders if he’s supposed to leave, if Cas is waiting for him to go so he can turn his show back on.

“What did I do wrong?” he finally asks, and Dean gives him a startled look.

Is he — did he hear that right?

“What? You didn’t.”

Cas nods shortly, jaw tight.

“Alright.”

There’s another long pause.

“What should I have done, then?”

“What?”

“What else did you want from me?”

Dean hesitates, because that one’s easy. He wants Cas — _all_ of Cas. Cas said he was Dean’s, but Dean is a selfish bastard, and he wants Cas to _just_ be his.

And he could have been fine with less than that, could have gotten used to it, because that’s what he does, but — but he doesn’t think he ever could have gotten used to Cas being unhappy.

To being the one to _make_ him unhappy.

“I didn’t, Cas,” he eventually answers. “I just—”

“Okay,” Cas interrupts, looking down. “What can I do, then? What can I do to make you stay?”

“Nothing,” Dean says, and it’s the truth, because Dean knows that Cas genuinely _can’t._ He can’t change, can’t force himself to be happy this way, and Dean would never ask him to. Dean’s the fucked up one, the insecure one who needs and needs and _needs,_ more than anybody, least of all Cas, can give.

Because it’s not Cas’s fault. Even not telling Dean about the thing in New York; he probably didn’t know _how_ to. It was Cas’s first relationship, for God’s sake — _Dean_ is the one who should have anticipated that, should have made allowances when they started this whole thing, shouldn’t have put Cas in that position in the first place. He _knew_ better; Cas has been this way for so long, it’s who he is _,_ and one thing Dean _does_ know?

Being in love doesn’t change people.

And hell, Cas probably isn’t even really in love with him. Dean is just — he’s always been there, always been the closest family Cas had when his actual family treated him like less than nothing, and it only makes sense that Cas would get confused. Dean is the one who heard, “I’m yours,” and ran with that, even though nothing really changed and they didn’t even talk about how this was gonna work.

At the end of the day, Cas was right, last summer. Dean is _bad_ at relationships; because even now, when he _finally_ got what he wanted, something worth holding onto, all he did was fuck it up from the get go, trying to push someone he supposedly cared about to give _more,_ to be _different,_ and no fucking wonder the pressure was getting to Cas.

“Nothing,” Cas repeats, and then his expression twists, and Dean’s never, ever seen him look like that, can’t even pinpoint what that look _is,_ but it’s making him feel sick to his stomach. “You just — _what?_ You — you just _changed your mind_? Realized you didn’t mean it, any of it?”

“No,” he protests, because how could Cas even _think_ that? “It’s — I meant it, Cas, I swear, you gotta know that, but — it’s killing me, doing it this way, second-guessing everything, and what’s worse, is it’s hurting _you_ —”

“ _I don’t care!_ ” Cas shouts, and then he’s on his feet, fists clenched. “You think _this_ doesn’t hurt me? You think this isn’t a _thousand_ fucking times worse than anything else you’ve done? For fuck’s sake, Dean, what did you expect from this? What was I supposed to do? Who — who do you need me to _be_?”

“Nobody, Cas, I don’t — I _never_ want you to be or do something you don’t want—”

“ _Too fucking late!”_ he snaps, startling Dean. “You _know_ , Dean — you _know._ You know how I feel and you know what I want and I know you don’t — it’s not the same for you, but if you couldn’t — if you couldn’t do this, you shouldn’t have tried!”

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, because he knows Cas is right, knows he’s responsible for this entire mess because he confused fantasy and reality and despite his long history of fucking up when it came to Cas, he somehow imagined he could do better, this time. “I’m sorry, I don’t — I didn’t realize. I know I should have, but I didn’t, and that’s my fault, it is, but — but I’m trying to fix it.”

“Well, you aren’t,” Cas retorts, bitter. “You _can’t._ You — you’re fucking me over, just like you always do. And I — god, here I am, _again,_ trying to do whatever I can to hang on, even though it doesn’t matter to you, does it? Not really. Not like it does to me.”

Dean stares, devastated.

“Don’t say that. Of course it matters to me, that’s why I’m _doing_ this, because I’m trying _not_ to fuck you over, because I’d rather be your friend than—”

Cas throws his hands up.

“You’d rather be my _friend._ You think we can be _friends,_ after this.”

“Don’t you want to?” Dean asks, and he knows it probably sounds like begging, but — but how can Cas even talk like they won’t be _friends_?

Cas’s shoulders sag.

“Of course I do,” he whispers. “Of course. As if I could _not._ ”

_Thank God._

“Okay. Okay, Cas.” He takes a deep breath. “That’s — that’s good.”

It doesn’t feel good, though. Dean feels like his heart just got put through a wood chipper, and Cas looks — well, Cas doesn’t look much better.

“Right,” Cas says dully. He shakes his head, and then slowly sits back down on the sofa. “So — what now, Dean? Do I move out? Do you move out? Or are you about to propose we stay roommates?”

Dean didn’t think that far.

“Uh.” He swallows. He’s not sure which sounds more painful, not seeing Cas every day anymore, or seeing him every day and knowing they didn’t work out. “Uh, maybe? I don’t — do you think that would be — weird?”

He’s assuming it won’t be like it has been, at least, although maybe he shouldn’t.

“Well, gee, Dean, I don’t know. _Would_ it be weird? Maybe. Actually, yes, I think it will be very _weird_ for me to be one room away from my fucking ex-boyfriend while he’s showing stupid Dr. Sexy fans the kind of good time he used to show _me._ ”

Dean’s first thought is, _what the fuck is Cas talking about_? But then it occurs to him that Cas has a point, that Cas might think them being broken up means it’s okay to bring all the people he screws around with here, and — and—

And that should be fine, right? Dean dealt with it in college, so — he can deal with it now, can’t he? As long as Cas stops skulking around the apartment, misery sinking into the walls — as long as Cas is _happy —_ Dean can deal, right?

“Is that — is that a ‘no’?”

Cas laughs, short and unhappy.

“No. No, it’s not a ‘no.’ It’s a ‘whatever you want, Dean.’” He snorts. “Like always.”

“If you don’t want to—” he starts, and Cas actually _glares._

“Don’t _even._ You know that’s how it is. You want something and I — I have no choice but to give it.”

“You do,” Dean insists, because yeah, he figured it was something like that, that Cas felt _obligated_ to go along with whatever Dean wanted, but he shouldn’t _._ “You’ve always got a choice. I don’t — if you’re not happy about something, then tell me.”

Cas just stares.

“You want me to tell you if I’m not _happy_ about something.”

“Dude, of course!”

Cas nods, seemingly to himself.

“Okay. Okay, Dean. Well, to begin with, I’m not happy you spent the weekend at Katya’s.”

Dean stares, taken aback.

“But—”

“And I’m not happy you avoided me all week before that.”

“So did y—”

“And I’m not happy you work so much.”

“I don’t have a ch—”

“And I’m not happy you drink so much, or that you barely talk to me, or that you expect me to lie to everyone.”

“When did I expect you to—”

“And that’s another thing I’m really fucking unhappy about, Dean. I’m not happy that after a long trend of devoted monogamy, you asked _me_ for an open relationship, four fucking weeks into ours. It made me feel like shit. It’s still making me feel like shit, except I should get used to that, because the other thing I’m unhappy about? Breaking up. That’s even _worse,_ which is why I agreed to the open relationship in the first place, but if I started out not being enough, I guess I should have known it would just get worse _._ ”

Dean gapes.

“Wait — _wait,_ just — hold the _fuck_ up. Are you seriously trying to tell me you wanted to be the only one fucking around while I waited up at home?”

Cas looks furious.

“No! I’m telling you I don’t _want_ to fuck around, and I don’t want you doing it either! But apparently, you disagree!”

Dean drank too much, this weekend. He’s not sure about alcohol poisoning, didn’t know it could give you hallucinations once you sobered up, but it must be able to because how is he even _hearing_ this?

“That’s — fuck, that’s bullshit and you know it!” he retorts, because while he might be willing to take the blame for how wrong everything went, ever since that stupid evening in the bar parking lot, he can’t believe Cas is _still_ pretending he doesn’t love being able to have sex when, where, and with whoever he pleases. “You sure as hell didn’t have a problem with it at Meg’s party!”

Cas glares.

“I didn’t do anything at Meg’s party.”

“Oh, right, just like you didn’t do anything in New York,” he says bitterly, and Cas draws back, anger turning to confusion.

“New York?”

“Yeah, you ass, New York. Except oh, yeah, you were _brushing your teeth_ when I called.”

Cas goes still.

“I — oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh.’ God, I’m not stupid. You’re a shitty liar, you know that, right?”

Cas swallows, eyes wide.

“I — I — but — but Dean, I didn’t — I—”

“Look, it doesn’t matter, okay? You don’t need to lie anymore, and — hell, we don’t even need to talk about it. What’s done is done, and the important thing—”

“No,” Cas interrupts, hoarse, his face strangely pale. “No, we do, because I — I _didn’t,_ Dean.”

“I told you, it doesn’t matt—”

“It _does!_ ” Cas cries, and the look he gives Dean is — if Dean didn’t know any better, he’d call that _anguish_. “You — you thought I slept with someone else in New York.”

Dean snorts.

“More like several someones.”

Cas closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, they look a little shiny.

“I did _not_. I wouldn’t — I _couldn’t,_ ” he chokes out, and Dean _knows_ he’s lying, has had a couple months to get used to the idea that yeah, Cas cheated the first chance he got, but shit _—_ maybe Cas is a lot better at lying than he used to be, because he looks and sounds like he’s got some honest-to-god feelings about this.

“Cas,” Dean says, a little softer. “It’s okay. I know you were — new to this whole relationship thing, and I kinda just — threw you in the deep end. I don’t blame you.”

Cas puts his head in his hands.

“I didn’t cheat. I swear I didn’t. And if I had known that you thought that—”

“Of _course_ I thought that — I heard _two other people,_ in bed with you, and then you lied about it—”

“Yes — yes, there were other people there, and yes, I lied — but not about _that.”_

“What, then? What are you suggesting happened that you wound up in this crazy, coincidental situation where you woke up in bed with God knows how many other people and then lied to your boyfriend about it?”

Cas lets out an honest-to-God sniff, still hiding his face.

“I’m suggesting everyone was _wasted,_ and we collapsed on the first bed we made it to and _passed_ out.”

“You _seriously_ expect me to believe that?”

“Yes!”

“Then why the hell did you tell me you were brushing your fucking teeth?”

Cas raises his head, eyes red and cheeks damp.

“Because! Because — because Bal had pills and I just — it was a special occasion and I wanted to have a good time, but I knew you didn’t want me doing anything like that and I was afraid we’d fight like we did last fall so I — I just—”

And that is the _dumbest fucking thing_ Dean has ever heard, and it is also _exactly_ the kind of thing Cas would do.

“ _Are you fucking kidding me?_ ” he yells, and Cas flinches.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, but Dean just — he just — if Cas had just fucking _said_ so, then—

Then _what,_ though? Then none of this would have happened? Because come _on_. Cas took his 24-hour hall pass and ran with it, basically, and if that’s the life he wants, then it’s just as well Dean didn’t accidentally force him into something different.

Of course, there’s also the small matter of the fact that Cas barely even seems to enjoy his company, anymore, which Dean’s hoping the end of the soul-crushing-obligations portion of their relationship will fix, but hey — no guarantees.

In fact, maybe this whole fucking time, Cas has just been hanging on, convinced he had this big, unrequited love for Dean, and now that _that_ bullshit has been resolved, he’s got enough perspective to realize he barely even _likes_ him.

“Aw, fuck,” he mumbles, rubbing his eyes. “ _Fuck._ It — it’s fine. It’s just — jesus, I guess it’s not important, is it? It doesn’t change anything.”

Cas looks like he’s been slapped.

“It — it doesn’t change anything?”

“No? Why the hell would it?”

“But now that you know I—” he starts, and then abruptly stops, expression blanking. “Oh. Katya.”

“Katya?” Dean repeats, incredulous. “The hell does Katya have to do with anything?”

“I’m not about to tell you I’m not stupid,” Cas says tiredly, “But I am capable of simple math.”

“Good for you, buddy, but I’m not. What are you even _talking_ about right now?”

Cas slumps into the sofa, clasping his hands in his lap.

“You came back from a weekend with a woman you met as a hookup, and with whom you have since formed a close friendship. A woman who is exactly the type I always thought you—”

Cas cuts off, taking a deep breath.

“The point is, none of this matters because you — you already moved on.”

Dean loves Cas, more than almost anything, but that intensity of feeling occasionally translates into a strong desire to just _throttle_ him, because for all that Cas is incredible and way too good for Dean besides, he’s not only a goddamn _idiot,_ he’s also batshit _crazy._

“I did _not,_ ” he declares hotly. “How can you even _say_ that?”

Cas chuckles.

“Please, don’t try and spare my feelings.” He pauses. “It’s a little late for that, anyway.”

“Now, hold on a fucking mi—”

“Just — just _don’t,_ Dean. As you said, it’s — it’s fine, it doesn’t matter, you made your choice—”

“ _I didn’t have a choice!_ You’re the one who doesn’t really want a relationship!”

“ _Excuse_ me? That — no! No, _you’re_ the one who doesn’t really want a relationship with _me_!”

“How do you even—”

“And I _knew_ that! I have _always_ known that, that I am nothing like what you want and I was stupid to believe I _could_ be, but don’t you _dare_ act like I have ever wanted anything else _,_ because I haven’t and you _know_ that! I fucking _told_ you that!”

And just — what a fucking mess. Because yeah, that’s what Dean would have thought, from what Cas said before Christmas, and Cas sure does sound like he believes that now, but literally nothing else about his behavior would suggest that was the case.

“You don’t — Cas, you don’t even _like_ me.”

Cas stares at him, eyes wide.

And then he throws a fucking _pillow_ at Dean.

“Are you — what _is_ this? What the hell is this? Is this a _game_ to you? Or — or are you punishing me right now? Is that it? Is this — _what is this_?”

Dean clenches his jaw.

“You don’t talk to me. You don’t touch me, unless you wanna get laid and your contact list is all booked up. You’re pissed at me all the time and you — fuck, Cas, you _told_ me you were unhappy. You told me _I_ didn’t make you happy. What the hell else am I supposed to _think_?”

Cas looks stunned _._

“I don’t — Dean, that’s — you’re the one who avoids me. You’re the one who makes me feel like — like every time you _do_ touch me, I’m guilt-tripping you into doing it. You randomly ignore me, and you — and you drink _all the fucking time._ Do you know how that makes me feel? Like it’s _my fault._ Like you’re unhappier than I have _ever_ seen you and I’m the one causing it, and you told _me_ you weren’t happy so I _know_ that’s not just in my head. And you have the nerve to sit there and say—”

He stops, breathing heavily, then straightens.

“You know what? Go fuck yourself, Dean. I — I shouldn’t have lied. And I’m sorry for that. But you were never going to be happy with me, and if you weren’t such a coward, you would just admit that instead of — instead of making shit up about how _I_ feel.”

And that just — that pisses Dean the hell off, because it’s like Cas is pulling words right out of Dean's brain and passing them off as his own goddamn feelings.

And it pisses him off even more, because they’re _fighting._ This, right here, is a fight, and it was never supposed to be. Dean was supposed to man up and let Cas go, just like his dad basically told him to, and Cas was supposed to go off and settle into a sense of relief because he didn’t have to tolerate any of this bullshit anymore, and then maybe, if Dean was lucky, they’d go back to being friends, somehow.

But Cas is pissed and — and _hurt —_ and it sounds like he doesn’t even want to break up, which doesn’t make a lick of goddamn sense; but everything he’s saying about how _Dean_ feels makes even less sense, and actually, _nothing about this makes sense._

And that — that confusion and uncertainty is just overwhelming enough that Dean gets an idea, and it’s a stupid fucking idea, but it’s all he’s got to work with.

“Come with me tomorrow,” he blurts out, and Cas’s scowl lessens only slightly.

“Come with you _where_?”

“To — to my — appointment. With Pam.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I don’t — because _we_ don’t — damn it, I feel like we’re having two different conversations here, okay? And I don’t — I don’t wanna fight with you.” He catches Cas’s eye, steels himself against the grief and fury and _exhaustion_ he sees there, and tries to convey just how badly he doesn’t want things to be like this. “So just — come with me? And then — and then we can figure it out there.”

Cas hesitates, and then he looks away.

“What is there to figure out?”

Dean’s not sure.

But he has more questions than answers, right now, and he can’t figure it out, not without Cas.

And he’s pretty sure Cas is in the same boat; in fact, he’s certain, because all the shit Cas was saying about Dean, and how Dean felt, was just — just _wrong._

So maybe Dean should try and go down the list and address that, should try and ask Cas his questions, but he’s afraid, right now, that he’ll just make it worse — just like he has everything else.

“I don’t know. But there’s something. This isn’t — we’re not—” and he hates to use this word, he really does, especially hates to use it right before he goes to ask her to fucking fix his mess — “Communicating. And we could sit here all night and try, but that — that could make it worse. And I don’t want things to get worse. Not with you.”

Cas gives him a pained look, searches his face for something, Dean’s not sure what, and when he stays silent, Dean scrambles to try and provide it.

“I don’t want to break up with you,” he manages, and he can hear the way Cas inhales. “Do you — you said you didn’t want that. Did you, uh, did you mean it?”

“Yes,” Cas says quickly, and something in Dean settles, because he has no idea how they can possibly make this work, at this point, but happy or not, Cas basically just said he wants to _try._

And sure, Dean can see the caution in his face, in the way he grips the remaining throw pillow like it’s about to run away from him, but Dean can also see his eyes, and Cas is looking at him with something a little like — like—

Like _hope._

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “Then — then let’s do that. We’ll go see her together, and — and sort things out. And then maybe we — won’t. Do that.”

Cas nods slowly.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Dean repeats, and finally looks away. “I’ll, uh. I’ll get some stuff, and sleep out here. Sound good?”

Cas hesitates.

“You don’t have to.”

“Nah, it’s fine. You shouldn’t have to, either, so it might as well be me.”

Cas looks like he wants to say something, brow all serious and troubled, and Dean waits—

But finally he just nods.

They get ready for bed in silence, taking turns in the bathroom, and Dean feels sick and nervous every time he thinks about tomorrow, has no idea how he’s going to sleep — but at least he feels like there’s a _chance._

And it’s one in a million, and even if it happens, it probably won’t be perfect — but it’s something, and it’s that thought he tries to keep in mind as he struggles to sleep.

Cas is having trouble, too, apparently; he comes out about two hours later, steps so soft Dean doesn’t realize he’s there until he blinks and realizes there’s someone standing just to the side of the little LED hall light, barely illuminated.

“You’re still awake,” Cas observes, and Dean shrugs, sitting up a little.

“Yeah. Third night in a row on a sofa, I guess,” he lies, and Cas must know what’s really keeping him up, because he gives him a strange look.

They just kind of stare at each other for a minute, but Dean doesn’t mind. Who knows how many more staring contests he’ll get to have with Cas, right? Might as well enjoy them while they last.

Finally, Cas speaks, so softly Dean has to strain to hear.

“You should sleep in there.”

Dean frowns.

“I told you, I’m not gonna make you sleep on the sofa.”

He gets a frustrated look in return.

“I’m not asking you to.”

And then the penny drops, and Dean swallows.

“Don’t wanna make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m already uncomfortable.” Cas shrugs, then adds quietly, “Please, Dean.”

And Dean wants to be confused, wants to wonder what’s in it for Cas, but he starts scrambling off the sofa before Cas has even finished saying ‘Dean’ and in the next moment, he realizes that it doesn’t matter, and whatever explanation he comes up with will be the wrong one.

That it’s possible — maybe — that Cas is feeling what Dean is; that he, too, is afraid of what tomorrow will bring, afraid that they’re running out of staring contests and nights in the same bed and mundane day-to-day nonsense, and tonight he just wants to be close.

Dean can do that.

They make their way down the hall in the dark, not a word between them, and climb into bed so quietly Dean’s pretty sure they’re both making an effort.

They lie there, wide awake and listening to each other breathe, for seconds or minutes or maybe more, and then Cas sighs and scoots closer, burrowing into Dean’s side. Dean doesn’t think, just wraps his arm around him and rests his chin against the top of his head.

And then, because it doesn’t matter, one way or the other — because things are already about as broken as they’re gonna get — Dean hides in the dark and follows the impulse when it hits him.

“I love you,” he whispers, and Cas goes utterly still, breathing no longer audible.

A few minutes later, Cas still has his face buried in Dean’s t-shirt, but Dean can hear him now, muffled, uneven gasps, and even if he couldn’t, the front of his shirt is wet enough that he’d know anyway.

Cas is crying.

And Dean doesn’t know what that means, if it’s good or bad or neither, but it’s late and they’ll talk about it tomorrow.

So he shuts his eyes and says nothing.

Instead, he just holds on.


	12. i need you on my side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last, here we are! I apologize for the long delay, the week was busier than I expected. I know I'm also very behind on responses to comments, but I wanted to get the rest of this up for you all. Thank you very much for your patience ♡
> 
> Chapter title from _On My Side_ \- Gordi.

“It’s nice to see you, Castiel,” Pamela says, though to her credit, there’s nothing snide about it; she looks him over with kind, curious eyes, and seems genuinely happy to see him.

“Likewise,” he mumbles, because — well. It’s embarrassing, to face her after last time. He knows he wasn’t reasonable, not at the end of the appointment or in his dismissal of her phone calls afterward, and no matter how nice she is about it, he’s still ashamed.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He hesitates, and Dean, bless him, jumps in.

“Actually, I — sorry, I should’ve called ahead, but — we were hoping you’d, um. Talk to us both.”

She nods.

“Advance notice is nice, if only because it can help me prepare, but I’m more than happy to do that. I have wondered, lately, if you might benefit from the occasional shared session, again.” She looks between them. “Is there something in particular that prompted this visit?”

Cas looks down, hoping Dean will explain. He’s not sure how to; he’s still not even sure what happened. Yesterday was a rollercoaster of despair because Dean still hadn’t come back from Katya’s, horror and desperation when he did come back and announced they should break up, despair again when he found out Dean thought that he’d _cheated_ in New York — which, now that Cas thinks about it with a clearer head, means Dean probably _didn’t —_ and finally, shock and outrage and abject misery when Dean suggested Cas _didn’t even like him._

Which was just _absurd._ Cas loves Dean — will always love Dean, doesn’t know how not to — and Dean should know that.

But last night, Dean said he loved Cas, too, unprompted and unexpected, and even though Cas is terrified of what today will bring, he desperately wants to believe that means they can find a way to make this work.

“Uhh. Yeah. Yeah, we — things kind of—” Dean clears his throat. “Things haven’t been so good, lately. And, uh. We talked about breaking up.”

Pamela nods slowly.

“And where do I come in?”

Dean hesitates, glancing over at Cas, and a part of Cas wants to reach out, thread his fingers through Dean’s to comfort both of them.

He keeps his hands to himself, still unsure.

“We don’t — neither of us want to. Break up, I mean. But we — we had a fight about it, and it, uh. It was clear that we weren’t — that we were wrong about some things.”

“Wrong about some things?”

“You know. We’re — we seem to be coming from two different places, here. And maybe we should’ve kept talking, but I thought — I didn’t wanna make it worse, and I thought you could help us . . . figure it out. How to — to meet in the middle, I guess.” He coughs. “So we don’t have to break up.”

She tilts her head.

“That was a good idea, Dean. I hope I can do that for you. Can you fill me in on where you left off?”

Dean makes a face.

“Uh. I can try. I’m not — I’m not really sure, myself. That’s kind of the problem.”

“I see. Castiel? Do you feel like you know?”

He shrugs, uncertain.

“Not really.”

“What about what triggered this talk?”

They’re both quiet, Cas because he doesn’t know, exactly, what made Dean decide to do that. He assumes it’s something to do with Katya, a possibility that gives him pause, but Dean said he didn’t want to break up, and he also said he loved Cas, so — whatever attachment he’s formed there, it can’t be so far along, yet.

Cas hopes, anyway.

“Things have been getting bad for a while,” Dean says eventually. “I stayed at a friend’s to try and get some perspective, and I thought — that’s what I needed to do.”

Cas gives Dean a sidelong glance.

“A friend,” he repeats, and they both look at him.

“Yeah?”

“Right. Okay.”

“Dude, what does _that_ mean?”

Dean’s just being obtuse, now.

“Katya is not just a friend. At the very least, she’s your fuckbuddy.”

Pamela raises her brows.

“Katya?”

“Yeah, I’ve told you about her before,” Dean says, and he has the nerve to look irritated.

“That’s not what I was asking.”

“Well, whatever you’re asking, Katya’s my friend. _Just_ my friend. For Christ’s sake, Cas, we didn’t even get to first base at the bar last fall, let alone any time since.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why would I _lie_?” Dean demands, throwing his hands up. “I’m not _you._ ”

And Cas — Cas can feel himself turning scarlet, because Dean has a point.

“May I ask what Dean is referring to?” Pamela queries, and Cas can’t quite bring himself to meet her eye.

He wants to say ‘nothing,’ and move on, and he absolutely would if he were alone in here, but he’s pretty sure if he tries that, Dean will cry foul.

“Yeah, Cas, tell Pamela what I’m referring to.”

“I thought we agreed it didn’t matter,” he mumbles, and Dean snorts.

“Fine, then don’t tell her. Just don’t accuse _me_ of lying.”

There’s a long silence, and Cas sighs.

“When I went to New York, I — partied harder than Dean would like. And yes, I lied about it.”

“I see,” Pamela says. “And why did this come out now?”

“Because Dean assumed I cheated—”

“You were in bed with other people! _And you lied_!”

“And one of the things we argued about, yesterday, was — other people we might be seeing. Dean mentioned New York, I was confused, and it became clear there had been a — a misunderstanding.”

“It sounds like there have been a lot of misunderstandings,” Pamela points out, and Cas can’t argue with that.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, and he almost sounds relieved. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. We’re — we’re kind of a mess, right now.”

“I understand.” She looks thoughtful. “It sounds like you didn’t confront Cas, when you thought he’d lied.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Dean shrugs.

“It wasn’t really his fault, you know? He is the way he is, and as the person with more dating experience, I should have realized a regular relationship wasn’t gonna work for him.”

Cas’s chest tightens. Dean said something like that, last night, and it made just as little sense then.

“So you just let it go?” Pamela asks, and Dean stays quiet, looking down.

“No,” Cas says, slowly putting the pieces together. “No, you — he asked me for an open relationship, instead.”

Dean shrugs again, still not looking at him.

“Pretty much. Didn’t want you thinkin’ that that was a dealbreaker.”

“A dealbreaker?” Pamela prompts, and Dean sighs.

“You know. If I told him I knew about it, he might feel like he had to do the right thing and break up with me, but mostly I thought . . . you know, that he realized this wasn’t — that this kind of relationship wasn’t what he wanted. And I didn’t want him to decide that meant, uh, that we couldn’t . . . have one at all.”

Cas’s fingers itch with the need to grab the nearest throw pillow and hold it over Dean’s face until he can never say anything so fucking _stupid_ again.

“So — you didn’t even _want_ that? Is that what you’re saying, Dean? You asked me for that, not for your sake, but for _mine?_ ”

“Yeah?” he agrees tentatively, glancing at Cas. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Fucking _talk_ to me about it, instead of making me think—” He breaks off with a frustrated noise, reminding himself they’re not here to fight, that he needs to just — behave himself and follow Dean’s lead and maybe, just maybe he can still have some of what he wants.

“Castiel?” Pamela prompts. “What were you going to say?”

He stares hard at the floor.

“Nothing.”

“It sounded like you had a thought about this.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he assures her. “It’s — it’s fine.”

And Pamela’s about to give him the communication lecture, he knows it, and what’s more, he thinks it’s unfair, now more than ever.

Because she _knows_ why he’s like this and what he’s afraid of, and he doesn’t understand why she would push it anyway.

“It’s not,” someone says, but it’s Dean, not Pamela.

“Excuse me?”

Dean looks at him, serious.

“That’s — c’mon, Cas,” he says, a little desperately. “This is why we’re here. Whatever you’re thinking, I — I want to know. I _need_ to know. It’s been driving me fucking crazy, feeling like I don’t know where you’re at, where _we’re_ at, and even if I try to fill in the blanks, it sounds like I’m doing it _wrong._ ”

And Dean has a point, because obviously he doesn’t understand where Cas is coming from, if he ever imagined Cas would sleep with other people when he had Dean waiting at home, but—

But talking is _hard._ And it’s one thing to talk to Pamela, who somehow managed to put it all together and attach meaning to the words, but he was paying her to do it and if she or he decided to just walk, Cas would survive that.

If _Dean_ doesn’t like what he has to say . . .

“Castiel,” Pamela addresses him. “Dean, too, actually. May I ask how much of your respective sessions I’m allowed to reference, here?”

Dean stares at her.

“Uh. Do you think that’ll . . . help?”

She nods.

“I think it will help a lot, honestly. But our sessions are private, and no one should agree to anything they’re uncomfortable with.”

Cas is definitely uncomfortable with that, and he’s willing to bet Dean is, too.

“Okay,” Dean says, and Cas turns, surprised.

“You’re okay with that?”

Dean doesn’t quite look at him, ears a little red.

“Not — not totally, but — I wanna, you know. Do this thing right.”

It’s a lot of pressure, and Cas can’t help but think it’s skewed; pretty much all he and Pamela talk about is Dean, it feels like. And he’s told her all kinds of embarrassing things about that, things Dean is not supposed to know.

Whereas Pamela’s going to call on . . . what? Dean’s dad issues? His drinking issues? His mom issues? His little brother issues?

Cas has no idea.

“I guess.”

“It’s alright if the answer is no, Castiel,” Pamela interjects quickly. “Just because Dean wants to do that, doesn’t mean you have to.”

Which sounds logical enough, but what everyone here has failed to understand is that Cas’s feelings for Dean and all the fears that come with it are generally untouchable by logic _._

“It’s fine. But — if there’s something I don’t want you to talk about, may I say?”

“Of course. Any time, just let me know.”

Dean’s giving him a curious look.

“I think she’ll mostly be talking about my bullshit. You must hardly ever talk about me.”

Cas colors.

“We do,” he says simply, and if anything, Dean looks alarmed.

“Oh.”

“Anyway,” Pamela continues. “I think you were onto something there, Castiel. If I’m not mistaken, you were indicating that the lack of communication from Dean compounded your insecurity. Is that correct?”

Cas focuses very hard on the denim grain of his jeans.

“I — I guess.”

“I didn’t — that’s not what I was trying to do. I just — I wanted you to feel comfortable, whatever we were doing.”

“I was not comfortable with you asking that,” Cas retorts, and maybe it’s a little mean, but — how on earth could Dean have thought that Cas would be _okay_ with that, let alone want it?

“Why didn’t you _say_ anything _?”_

And as upset as he is, Cas knows he’s on unsteady ground, here, because it sounds like his reasons for not saying anything were the same as Dean’s for enacting such a terrible scheme in the first place.

He didn’t want Dean to leave him.

Pamela lets the silence run for no more than thirty seconds before she speaks.

“This is the first time I’ve been able to talk with either one of you about the open relationship agreement, but I think I might be able to guess why Castiel didn’t object. May I share?”

He hesitates, then gives a jerky nod. Maybe Pamela can spin it to be less pathetic, at least.

“Dean, I think you underestimate how important you are to Castiel. Your relationship — whatever kind it is — is invaluable to him. As a result, I think he’s sometimes reluctant to tell you ‘no’ in situations where he thinks that may cause discord.”

“What?” Dean looks at Cas. “You — that makes it sound like you’re scared of saying ‘no’ to me.”

“That’s not — inaccurate,” Cas admits, and Dean makes a face.

“You say ‘no’ to me all the time!”

“About things that don’t _matter._ Things I know you won’t be that pissed about.”

Dean’s face falls.

“Is this — you always hated it when my — my dad, came to town. I know I, uh, I can have a temper, like he did. Are you really — afraid of me?”

Cas closes his eyes briefly.

“I didn’t like your father and his temper because he tended to hurt you with it. I was never really afraid of him, though. And I’m not — I’m never afraid of _you.”_

“Then what _are_ you afraid of?”

He presses his lips together, avoiding Dean’s gaze.

“I am afraid that — if I make you angry enough, you’ll just . . . give up on me.”

“Give up on you?” Dean repeats, incredulous. “Like — break up with you?”

Cas nods.

“Or stop being my friend.”

Dean gapes, and then he shuts his mouth, jaw tense.

There’s another silence, Pamela watching them both carefully.

“When we were kids,” Dean says, startling Cas. “I thought — I thought to myself, if you ever killed somebody, you’d probably have a good reason.”

Cas stares, not sure whether to be insulted or not, and mostly just confused at how this relates.

“What does tha—”

“Wait, let me finish. I, uh, I thought to myself, well, I’d love you no matter what, so the murder part — you know, that was nothin’. But you’d probably still be in a lot of trouble, right? And I figured — hey, we’d figure it out. I’d always look out for you anyway.”

Cas furrows his brow.

“I don’t understand.”

Dean sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“I’m trying to say — look. Even if you went crazy and started chopping people up, I’d — well, I’d want you to get help, honestly. But I’d still love you and visit you in psych prison or wherever as often as they’d let me. So — don’t — don’t ever think that if you just make me _mad,_ it’d change how much I care about you.” He shrugs. “Or how much I want to be with you.”

Cas is stunned, doesn’t really know how to answer that.

“Oh.” That’s . . . nice. Cas isn’t sure he believes him, but — it’s still nice.

“Alright. So, next time I think it’s what you want and ask for something stupid, just — actually, just throw a pillow at me and tell me to fuck off.”

Cas side-eyes him for a moment, and Pamela clears her throat.

“Is that something you feel like you can do, Cas?”

“No,” he answers honestly. “It’s not — it’s not that simple. I wasn’t just afraid of you being mad or breaking up with me, Dean. I also — I thought, if that’s what _you_ wanted, I didn’t want to deny you. Even if you stayed with me, I didn’t want you to be less happy doing so.”

Dean scowls.

“Well, I didn’t want it. And I would’ve been happy without it.”

“But I couldn’t _know_ that. I thought you knew how I would feel about it, and the only reason you would ask was if it was important to you.”

“No — no, don’t — you can’t think like that, man. I’d never—” He takes a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, bottom line, Cas? If something’s making you unhappy — something more serious than my laundry piling up — I don’t want it. I don’t care what it is, it can go fuck itself. I’m not — the whole damn reason I thought we had to break up was because you _were_ unhappy and that’s — that’s my hard line, right? I can be selfish up to that point, and then I’m done, because you being miserable? I just — can’t do that.”

Once again, Cas isn’t sure what to make of that, thinks it’ll be a struggle, to let Dean’s words now guide any of his actions in the future — but it’s weirdly reassuring, anyway.

Enough that he musters his courage and asks the question that’s been weighing on him since last night.

“If that — if that’s true, then can we — if we don’t break up, can we go back?”

Dean blinks.

“Go back where? And yeah, of course it’s true. Wouldn’t say something so goddamn chick-flicky for any other reason,” he mutters, folding his arms, and Cas relaxes a little more.

“I mean — would it be alright if we didn’t . . . have an open relationship, anymore? I know you’ve gotten used to it—”

Dean straightens, staring.

“Hold the fuck up. In what way are you suggesting I’ve gotten _used_ to it?”

Cas rolls his eyes.

“Fine, not — gotten used to it. But you _have_ taken advantage of it, at least on occasion, and I just wanted to know if that — if that’s what I should expect, moving forward, or if you would be willing to — to try it the first way, again.”

And of-fucking-course, Dean looks pissed again.

“You — jesus, do you even _listen_? For fuck’s sake, Cas, I—”

“Dean,” Pamela interrupts, and he swivels, glaring at her.

“ _What_?”

“I understand you’re upset. But try to remember not to let your temper get the best of you. Whatever it is you want to say to Castiel, he’s going to hear it better if it’s spoken with as little aggression as possible.”

Dean scowls, but says nothing.

“Then I’m gonna need a minute,” he finally mumbles, and she nods encouragingly.

“That’s good. In an argument, tempers run hot. It’s always appropriate to take a step back and breathe, and to be patient when your partner needs to do so, as well. In the meantime — you asked me a question, a little while back, about Cas’s sexuality. May I share that?”

Cas looks over curiously, but Dean is staring hard at the floor.

“Fine,” he mutters tersely. “Knock yourself out, if you think it’ll help.”

“I think it will. I think you’re both struggling to see this from the other person’s perspective, and while I think you’ll get there, if we sit here long enough, I don’t think it hurts to have me nudge you in the right direction. The important thing is that you’re both here and willing to talk it out.”

Cas waits, expectant, because what could Dean possibly have asked her about Cas’s sexuality? That she thinks is _relevant_ here?

“Castiel, a couple months ago Dean asked me what I thought of your sexuality.”

“I’m pan,” he offers unnecessarily, and she smiles.

“And we discussed that you identified as such. But his real question was about your sex drive.”

Ah, yes. Dean has a lot of strange ideas about that.

“Did you tell him it’s neither as extreme or influential as he imagines?”

She gives him a stern look.

“I don’t speak for either one of you if you’re not here to do it yourselves. And what I told him isn’t important. What’s important is that you know that Dean expressed concern — and insecurity — over your sex drive. Over what it made you want. Over whether he, as just one person, could adequately satisfy it.”

Cas reddens a little.

“Well, he shouldn’t have worried,” he says stiffly. “He’s well aware I find him very satisfying.”

Beside him, Dean has his face buried in his hands.

“I don’t think he was concerned about the quality of sex he was providing,” Pamela says seriously. “In fact, he openly stated that he was worried that what you wanted was variety.”

“I am certainly open to experimenting—” Cas starts, and Pamela’s lips twitch.

“Not that kind of variety.” She pauses. “Dean thought you had a natural drive to be with multiple partners. And that, if that were the case, it would be impossible for him to meet your needs on his own.”

Dean was absolutely right about one thing; if Cas ever kills someone, he’s going to have a very, _very_ good reason.

“Well, Dean’s an _idiot,_ ” he snaps. “Dean’s been inventing stupid fucking myths about my sexuality since _college,_ and if he had ever just _asked_ me—”

“Name-calling is not constructive,” Pamela interjects sharply. “If all you want is to express how angry you are, that’s one thing, but if you’re hoping to achieve something? _Definitely_ don’t.”

Cas glares at her.

“Fine. Dean’s _incredibly misguided._ Dean has a lot of _creative illusions.”_

“Yeah, I’m actually _not_ stupid, and that’s seriously not better, man,” Dean mumbles, and Cas resists the urge to shove him off the fucking sofa.

Pamela glances between them, assessing.

“Castiel, do you feel like you have a better explanation of your sexuality to offer?”

“I do,” he informs her, then glares at Dean. “And I would have been happy to give it if someone had not only asked, but been willing to listen.”

“Hey, I was willing—”

“No, you _weren’t_. All you ever did was make jokes and snide comments about it. You clearly didn’t really want to know.”

“Jesus, did you ever think that maybe I was trying to _cope_ with it? With the fact that your sexuality seemed to be pretty much _anyone who wasn’t me_?”

Cas inhales sharply.

“No, no, I didn’t, because if anything, that’s how I would describe _yours._ ”

“Oh, come on. You knew I wanted you. Of the two of us, I was the only one brave enough to make a fucking move—”

“When you were _drunk off your ass_! A move you pretended to forget the next morning, I might add! It hardly _counts._ ”

“I did the best I could!”

“Well, you should have done better!”

Dean’s expression falters, and he sags back into the sofa.

“I know. I know I — yeah. You deserved better from me.”

And now Dean’s upset and feels bad, which is fucking _unfair,_ because Cas was angry a second ago, had every _right_ to be angry, but—

But he can’t be, not when Dean looks like that, like he’s fast approaching hopeless and they should all just be grateful there’s no whiskey in Pamela’s office.

Not when Dean is right, and Cas is just as much to blame.

“Castiel,” Pamela starts, and he throws her a helpless glance. “Do you think it’s possible you have some . . . residual feelings, about that period after college?”

“Residual feelings,” he repeats.

“Yes. Some — resentments, or insecurities, that may have lingered.”

_Of course I do._

“Possibly.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one,” Dean chimes in, not looking at him, and Cas frowns.

“What does _that_ mean?”

“You sure didn’t act like someone holding a torch, is all I’m saying.”

“And how _exactly_ was I supposed to act?”

“Not screwing around with every Tom, Dick, and Harry, not to mention every woman on all their family trees, maybe.”

And just like that, Cas is angry again.

“So _what,_ I was supposed to move into a _monastery_?”

“God, no, you’d have ‘em all holding orgies by the end of the first week.”

“ _Do you see what I mean?_ ” Cas chokes out, directing his disbelief toward Pamela.

“I think,” she says hesitantly. “Dean — Cas’s sexual history seems to bother you a lot. It sounds like you interpret his interest in other people as proof that he’s not that interested in you — which is a problem, because you’ve freely admitted to enjoying a lot of sexual freedom yourself. I’m not saying you mean it that way, but it sounds like a double standard.”

Dean looks furious, but then, Dean never needs a good reason to be angry, does he?

“He _turned me down._ What was I supposed to do? Unlike him, I get _lonely,_ I want to feel close to someone, I want to feel good and like I can make somebody else feel good in return. I had no reason to think I was ever gonna get what I actually wanted, so I had to try and talk myself out of it!”

“That’s not _fair,_ Dean! You think _I_ didn’t feel rejected? You think I wasn’t struggling with the fact that you didn’t seem to return my feelings and I’d already proven I _couldn’t_ talk myself out of them? At least when you get lonely, you can turn to other people. Other people might be able to get me off, but unlike _you_ , I can’t use them for anything else!”

“Except I _didn’t_ reject you! You never gave me a fucking chance!”

“When was I supposed to? I thought you were straight all through college!”

“Okay, fine, but once I’d dated Aaron, you _knew —_ and you _knew_ I was probably interested, after that stupid party before break. But you still — you didn’t even try. It was never _worth_ it for you to try. Last fall, if we hadn’t had that huge fight, you probably never would have.”

“Do you — do you _hear_ yourself? For God’s sake, Dean, your drunk best friend trying to kiss you is not a declaration of intent by any standard, and certainly not a reliable one. And Aaron — fucking _Aaron —_ all that did was make me write it off as you trying to use me as your gay experiment.”

“I would _never_ —” Dean starts, and he has the nerve to look outraged.

“And that’s another thing! You moved out and didn’t talk to me for _ten fucking months._ You seemed perfectly happy to throw away a twelve-year-long friendship for good; if I’d had _any_ hope of you returning my romantic feelings, that killed it — along with any hope that you cared about me at _all._ ”

“I needed to get over you,” Dean insists, although it’s weak as hell and Cas can tell he knows it.

“Well, it looked like you did a pretty good job of it,” Cas remarks, bitter. “You think me having a bunch of meaningless sex made it look like I couldn’t really be interested in you? How do you think I felt every time you got into a serious relationship? Every time you fell in love with someone else?”

“I was just — I was just trying my best, Cas.”

“Well, so was I. And for the record, I don’t — whatever it is you get from other people, whatever it is you were looking for — I _don’t_. A cure for loneliness, a sense of closeness, stupid goddamn feelings — I don’t get that from anybody but _you._ That doesn’t mean I don’t want it just as badly as anyone else.” He shakes his head. “You want to know about my sex drive, Dean? Here it is. Sex feels good, to my body and my brain, and so I had a lot of it, because sometimes I run out of other things that make me feel good, since shows only air a handful of episodes a year and I can’t run that many miles in one day and my friends don’t always have time to play according to my whims. But if someone told me I could never have sex again? I would be fine with that. I would be sad, and I’d miss it, just like I’d miss running or watching my favorite TV show, but there are other things to do, and none of those are the most important things.”

Dean listens, looking baffled and upset, and Cas is trying _so_ fucking hard to get the words right, and he’s not sure what he’ll do if Dean still doesn’t understand.

“But — you love sex.”

“Not more than the other things I just described. Although the sex I have had with you may be changing my opinion,” he admits grudgingly, and Dean’s face undergoes a strange series of contortions.

Neither of them say anything for a moment, and eventually, Pamela speaks.

“May I comment, here?”

“Go ahead,” Cas mutters, and she nods.

“It sounds to me like whatever you discussed before Christmas, when you first started dating — you continue to have a lot of misunderstandings about the years prior. Which makes sense. You have a very long history with each other.”

“Right,” Dean agrees, although he still looks troubled, and Cas worries what that means for the rest of this talk.

“And despite your decision to start dating, it seems like those misunderstandings still inform the way you treat one another; the decisions you make; the things you’re afraid of.”

“I don’t see how they couldn’t,” Cas tells her honestly, and she nods.

“I agree. The only solution to that would be to talk about it — to figure out where you didn’t communicate, and try to explain it to each other, so you have the real picture, instead of what you’ve imagined.”

“That will take a while.”

“Absolutely. I don’t think we have time for it today, nor do I think it’s healthy to dissect that all at once. However,” she continues, making careful eye contact with both of them. “What we may have time for — and what will make those talks go a lot more constructively — is establishing a baseline for how you both feel. Something to keep in mind as you talk about the difficult things, the bad feelings you’ve had.”

“A baseline?” Dean echoes, and she nods.

“Before we hash out all the ways you’ve misunderstood and hurt each other in the past, it would be good for you both to know, beyond any doubt, how you both feel right now. What you want, moving forward.”

And Cas somehow knows Pamela’s going to ask them to talk about that, now, to share those things, and he feels a little betrayed, because she knows exactly how hard it is for Cas to do that.

“How, uh. How should we do that?”

“Well, for starters, think about what you’ve both talked about with me. I feel like I have a _very_ clear idea of how you feel about each other and what you’re looking for from this relationship, and I am happy to say that I think you’re very in sync.”

Cas looks over at Dean, searching his face like it will reveal every conversation he’s ever had with Pamela, because Cas knows what _he’s_ told Pamela, and he desperately wants to know what Dean could have said that would suggest to her their feelings and wants were even close to on par.

“We’ve talked about a lot,” Dean points out, and she nods.

“We have. But through talking, we’ve pinned down the core of your feelings about things, about each other, about what you _want_. We’ve put them into words, into clear statements. If you can remember any of it, and try and share it now, that would be helpful. And actually, if you’re comfortable with it — I think that, _especially_ those things you expressed a reluctance or outright refusal to share with each other? They might be the most important.”

Ah. Well, Cas is hosed, then. Hopefully Dean has something to say here.

Of course, nobody says anything at all for several minutes.

“You gonna say anything, man?” Dean finally asks, shooting Cas a nervous look.

Cas shakes his head, a little apologetic.

“Probably not.”

Pamela sighs.

“Do I have permission to get you started?”

Dean hesitates.

“I guess?”

“Alright. I’d prefer Castiel to tell you this himself—”

“I didn’t give you permission,” Cas says quickly, alarmed. “That was Dean.”

“Ah. I understand. Never mind, then.”

“Dude, _seriously_? You can’t just—”

“If Cas isn’t comfortable, we have to respect that, Dean,” Pamela tells him gently, and Cas swears to God Dean actually _pouts._

“But—”

“Fine,” Cas says tiredly. “Go ahead, before he tantrums and needs a nap.”

Dean narrows his eyes.

“The only one of us who ever takes naps—”

“Dean, would you like to know what Castiel told me?” Pamela interjects, and Dean shuts his mouth.

“Yeah, okay. Lay it on me.”

“Castiel told me he’s afraid to ask you for what he wants.”

Dean’s shoulders sag.

“Yeah? Well, _Castiel_ seems real scared of me for a lot of reasons. Did he tell you what I could do to fix that?”

“No, but hopefully we’re doing it right now. He did tell me he’s afraid that if he asks you, you’ll feel pressured to give it, but you’ll eventually get tired of doing something you don’t want, and he’ll end up with even less than he started out.”

He makes a face.

“If I don’t wanna do something, I won’t do it.”

“That’s not true,” Cas says, unable to help himself. “Anyone you think is family, anyone you think is your responsibility — you’ll sacrifice a lot to make them happy. And that’s one thing, if they’re not asking a lot, but if they’re demanding too much, you can only force yourself for so long.”

Dean stares at him, brow furrowed, and then turns to Pamela.

“And what was it Castiel wanted to ask me for?”

She raises a brow.

“Affection.”

Dean’s mouth opens a little.

“A-aff- _what_?” he exclaims, and his shock is painful to witness. Cas feels ridiculous, wanting such a thing when it clearly hasn’t even crossed Dean’s radar.

“May I tell Dean what you said about that?”

“Please don’t.”

“No! No, please _do_ tell Dean what you said about that, because Dean fucking _asked_ Pamela about that, specifically, and she wouldn’t!”

“I told you, Dean,” she says firmly. “Our sessions are private. And right now, if Cas doesn’t want me to share, I’m not going to.”

“What — what did Dean ask you?” Cas tries, curious, and Dean glowers at him.

“Oh, _now_ you want her breaking confidentiality—”

“Dean, may I?”

“Knock yourself out,” he snaps, and crosses his arms.

“Dean approached me asking what I would advise him to do to maintain a healthy relationship with his partner. He seemed particularly concerned that you might be mad at him, and I brought up affirmation and its importance in ensuring you and your partner feel secure in a relationship.”

Cas blinks.

“Affirmation,” he repeats.

“Yes. I didn’t get a chance to talk about this with you, but Dean and I discussed communicating to your partner that they had value to you, that you cared about them, that you respected and supported them, so that when conflict did arise, there was no room for doubt about the security of that relationship. Dean made a commitment to try that, and I’m not sure how it went, but when he saw me again, he asked what else he could do, and I brought up another aspect of affirmation — which is affection.”

She pauses, throwing a curious glance at Dean, who is looking determinedly off to the side and turning faintly pink.

“I am happy to hear how that went whenever you’d like to talk about it, by the way.”

“I’m — I’m good,” he stammers.

“What about me?” Cas asks quickly. “Will you tell me? I didn’t — I didn’t even know you tried anything.”

“Yeah, you did,” Dean mutters. “You hid in the fucking bathroom, remember?”

Cas blinks, startled.

“That — that was you . . . so . . . Pamela told you to say that?”

“I don’t tell anyone to say anything,” Pamela points out, and Cas thinks she might sound a little offended.

“Then why did he do it?” he demands.

“I’m not sure what Dean said, but I told him to verbally express whatever positive thoughts he might have about you, rather than keeping them to himself. At no point did I tell him what those thoughts should be.”

Cas is silent, thinking hard, and Dean finally speaks.

“I — every time I tried to tell you how — you know. To — to compliment you, I got — it felt awkward and I didn’t know how you’d react,” he explains haltingly. “So I thought — I can at least — what was it, Pam? Affirm my partner’s desirability? — and maybe it’d be easier if — if we were, you know. It’d be less weird. You might not even notice.”

“I noticed,” Cas breathes, astounded by this revelation. “You — were you just saying that to make me feel good?”

“No! No — I mean, yes, I wanted you to feel good, but — but I wanted you to know that I — fuck. That I thought that. Because I don’t think I said, before. Ever.”

“You didn’t,” Cas agrees. “That’s why I hid. I was — overwhelmed. I thought I’d been too — well, needy, and you were trying to give me what you thought I wanted.”

Dean looks disgruntled.

“No. Jesus, no. I was just . . . finally telling you what I thought. What I'd thought for years. Even when I was pretending I wasn’t bi and wasn’t in love with you, I still caught myself thinking how good-looking you were, for chrissakes. Surprised I didn’t figure it all out sooner,” he adds, spiteful in a way that Cas knows isn’t directed at anyone but himself.

“You thought I was good-looking? Even when we were younger?”

“Yeah,” Dean admits, not looking at him. “Everybody hit puberty and started dating and shit, and I didn’t know why you didn’t, or why people weren’t constantly after you. Spent a decent amount of time thinking about your goddamn eyes, and what an okay-looking body all that running gave you, and don’t even get me started on all the thoughts I had about how nice your hair was, how nice _touching_ it was.”

Cas stares.

“How did you _not_ figure it out sooner?” he blurts out, and Dean glares.

“Shut up. I wasn’t very good at this, okay? I'm still not.”

“Sorry,” Cas says, and he means it, although — although knowing Dean had those kinds of thoughts about him, even if Dean didn’t know what they meant — _especially_ if Dean didn’t know what they meant — it’s . . . extremely flattering.

“And what you said that night. While we were — you meant all that? You think that?”

Dean covers his face.

“’Course I do. You seen yourself? It’s a good thing we don’t _both_ work at home or else we’d be out of our jobs.”

Cas tries not to be delighted by this. The metaphorical house is on fire and he and Dean are potentially trapped inside it; it is absolutely not the time for childish glee.

Pamela coughs, and Cas quickly schools his features.

“Oh. Thank you, then.”

“At the risk of needing to get the spray-bottle, do you have anything _you’d_ like to say, on this topic?” she asks.

Cas blinks, surprised.

“Oh. Well, obviously, Dean is — very — my preference,” Cas says awkwardly. “He knows that.”

“Your _preference,_ ” Dean repeats, sour. “First of all, I don’t know that, and second of all, what the hell does that mean?”

Cas gives him a frustrated look. Like most human beings, and an open-minded gorilla at the Kansas City Zoo, Cas knows both objectively and subjectively that Dean is probably the most beautiful entity he will ever have the privilege of laying eyes on.

He’s not about to say it like that, though.

“It means I — prefer you. Your looks, your — everything else. I find them, uh, more appealing. Than any others.”

Dean blinks.

“I want to be flattered, I do, but I’m feeling kinda cheated here. Like, I tell you you’re the most fucking beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, that sometimes I look at you and don’t even know what to do with myself, you’re so gorgeous, and you just — I’m _more appealing_?”

Cas flushes.

“You were thirty seconds away from coming when you said that,” he argues, and Pamela suddenly looks up, way up, scratching her chin. “Forgive me if I took it with a grain of salt, and if I can’t — _match your performance,_ in our therapist’s office.”

“As much as I want to see you two work this out, please don’t,” Pamela says kindly, and Dean snorts.

“Yeah, whatever. Okay. I think you’re perfect, and you think I look a little better than other people. Cool. Pam, what were you saying before we got sidetracked?”

Pamela frowns at him.

“I appreciate that your feelings are hurt, Dean—”

“My feelings are _not_ hu—”

“But I think Castiel was genuinely trying to express himself, there. If you felt that was inadequate, then belittling that effort might make it even harder for him to do so.”

Dean sighs.

“Okay. Sorry, Cas. Thanks for liking me better than whatever else you’ve got going on. Can we move on now?”

Cas clenches his fists, pained.

“I do think you’re perfect,” he manages. “I’m not — I’ve spent fifteen years not telling you that. Trying not to think of you that way. It’s difficult to just — overcome that. But I do. I’ve been — Dean, even you’ve acknowledged how often I _stare_ at you. I always _have._ It’s because given a choice of what to look at, I’d choose you. I — of _course_ I think you’re beautiful. I don’t know how I can still have this many feelings about it, given that I’ve spent nearly two decades looking at you, but I do. And you are.”

Dean’s bright red now, not making eye contact with anybody, but Cas thinks he looks — pleased.

“Oh. Okay. Uh. Cool.”

Pamela clears her throat, mouth a suspiciously straight line.

“Very good, both of you. Is there anything else you’d like to say, or can we move on?”

“Uh. Yeah. Sure,” Dean agrees, and Cas lets out a breath, nodding.

Communication is _exhausting._

“Thank you. So, Dean indicated that his initial efforts at affirmation were not successful, and since he felt that he should be doing more for you, we discussed affection.” Pamela pauses. “Dean didn’t particularly feel like it was worth talking about.”

Cas’s heart sinks a little, although he knew that.

“That’s fair. That’s not a, um. A significant element of our relationship.”

Beside him, Dean sighs, sounding tired.

“I’m aware that you both think that,” Pamela concedes. “But Dean told me it was because you didn’t like affection. He expressed the feeling that he coerced you into participating in it, as children, but that once you were old enough to know better, you made it clear you didn’t want it.”

All the good feelings Cas had a moment ago promptly disintegrate.

“ _What_?” He turns to Dean. “Why would you tell her that? Were you trying to get out of it?”

Dean looks at him like _he’s_ the one who’s crazy.

“Dude, maybe because it’s true? You don’t want me hanging all over you. You never did.”

“ _When did I say that_?”

“You didn’t have to! After high school, you started avoiding me, and we didn’t — we never touched anymore, and you were fine with it.”

“I was _not!_ ” Cas protests. “I spent time with other friends, so sue me. I was trying to get over you — _which_ it sounds like you should understand. I _never_ suggested I didn’t want you touching me anymore.”

“Well, that’s what it felt like,” he says under his breath, and Pamela leans forward a little.

“Castiel; _now_ may I share with Dean what you told me? When we talked about affection?”

Cas shrinks in on himself a little, but — he nods.

Someone needs to, apparently. All this time, Dean thought — Dean thought Cas _didn’t want it._ When it was _all_ he wanted.

Dean looks at her expectantly, sullen and hopeful all at once.

“Cas told me — and these are his words, not mine — that he wished you were affectionate all the time.” She pauses. “This was after you went to the aquarium. He was expressing confusion because you held his hand, and he felt this was out-of-character for you. What’s more, he indicated that this relationship was not like others for you, and suggested a lowered expectation for such affectionate gestures because of it.”

Dean sits up at that, face twitching, and then grunts.

“God _damn_ it,” he utters, rubbing his forehead. “You — where did you even _get_ all that?”

Cas shrugs, helpless to explain, and Pamela jumps in.

“It sounds like you both developed some misconceptions regarding the other person’s intentions, particularly during times of limited communication. I think you misattributed a lot of each other’s behavior. The important thing is to be honest, now, about what you want from each other.”

“You want me to be affectionate all the time,” Dean states, addressing Cas.

“Not if you don’t want to. I never want to pressure you.”

“Well, you can’t. Not where that’s concerned. I mean — did you never wonder why I wanted to share a bed with you? Why I — and that’s another thing! I told you, last week, why I hugged you every day, and you agreed that you _let_ me do that. Not once did you say that was something you wanted.”

“It was.” Cas swallows. “I think it was something I needed, too. I was — it was hard, when you stopped.”

“You should have said.”

“You shouldn’t have stopped.”

“Dean,” Pamela interrupts. “We’ve established a tentative understanding of Castiel’s needs, as far as affection goes. Would you like to state yours?”

Dean goes quiet.

“I — would like to give you affection all the time,” he finally says. “And I — I’d like you to give it to me.”

Cas’s heart does something very strange inside his chest, and Dean continues.

“Because I am apparently a giant girl, I would really like to cuddle with you when you’re not unconscious. I’d like to spoon each other on the sofa when we watch TV. I’d like to hug you before I leave for work and when I come home and whenever I damn well please. I’d like to hold your hand when we look at the sharks or walk in the park and I’d like to put my arm around you without worrying you’ll just shake it off.”

“I won’t. I want you to do that. I am also a giant girl,” he adds quickly, in case Dean doesn’t understand.

“Fuckin’ A,” Dean mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Wanting affection is not a feminine thing, by nature,” Pamela says warningly, and Dean rolls his eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes. The fact that you know better but you feel like you have to use this language when you talk about your feelings is a big problem. One we’re going to have to discuss at some point.”

Dean sighs.

“I look forward to it, Doc.”

She nods, satisfied.

“I think, now, that I’d like to ask you both some questions, questions I’d appreciate you answering honestly, without censoring yourself out of concern for what the other person might be wanting to hear. And I’d like for you to _just_ answer the questions, and try not to go down any rabbit holes until we’re done, though I encourage you to talk it out with one another later.”

“Shoot,” Dean says.

“Alright. Dean, do you want an open relationship?”

“For god’s sake, no. A thousand fucking times no.”

“Okay. Cas?”

“No. I never did.”

Dean looks like he wants to say something, but Pamela shoots him a discouraging look.

“Next — Dean, have you been with anyone else since you started dating?”

Dean looks startled.

“Of course not.”

“But Katya—”

“Will you shut up about Katya? I told you, she’s my friend. I slept on her sofa this weekend and snuggled with her cats while we watched Dr. Sexy, a show you don’t even like that much. What is your deal with her, anyway?”

Pamela hesitates, but says nothing, looking to Castiel.

She must feel like this is important.

“She — I just — she’s the kind of woman I always thought you’d end up with.”

“Or man,” Dean corrects him, and Cas slowly shakes his head.

“No. I was always sure it would be a woman.”

“Bi,” Dean enunciates, like Cas is an idiot. “Means two. If you wanna get down and dirty, I’m a Kinsey three.”

“That’s attraction,” Cas states carefully, and Dean frowns at him.

“What are you saying?”

“When you settled down — don’t you think you would prefer to do it with a woman?”

Dean lifts his brows.

“No? What — are you saying _you’d_ rather be with a chick?”

“No, of course not. If it can’t be you, I don’t care about — any of that. Ever since I was old enough to consider it, I pictured my future with you. But — you would have pictured it with a woman. And I still think you might be more comfortable with that.”

“I — dude, where do you even come up with this stuff?”

“The only times you’ve ever truly been serious with someone, it’s been a girl.”

“You act like that’s a huge fucking sampling. It’s not. It was _twice._ ”

“You date more women,” Cas argues.

“Because more women date _me_! Dudes either can’t tell I’m into it or they themselves aren’t. Hell, even the ones I hook up with — I guess — they don’t think I’m the type. I’ve had people assume I’m still in the closet, for God’s sake. Queer dudes don’t wanna date me.”

“They would if they thought it was an option,” Cas mumbles.

“Don’t flatter me while we argue,” Dean protests, scowling. “Let’s just — let’s just establish here that Katya is a fucking fantastic girl, she’s gonna make somebody very happy someday if she decides to do that, but any more-than-friendly interest I had in her was solely inspired by the fact that you were pissed at me and then you were trying to hook up with Chris Evans while I was right there, okay? She’s not you and she’s never going to be you and I don’t want her. Or any other girl or dude or anybody in between,” he adds, squinting at Cas like he might argue.

And Cas wants to believe that, he does, but—

“You don’t want — a house in the suburbs? Children that are yours? A wife all your peers will envy, someone no one looks twice at you for being with?”

“Give me some fucking credit, dude,” Dean splutters. “First of all, most of my _peers_ are following the goddamn rainbow, one way or another, and you can bet your ass they’ll envy the shit out of me if I’ve got you. As for the other stuff — maybe? I have no idea. But I know I want you, more than any of that other stuff, and if it comes down to it — we’ll work it out. Like we always do.”

Cas hesitates.

“Okay.”

Dean still looks pissed, though.

Pamela takes a breath.

“Okay. Well done, both of you. I think that was definitely important to resolve. Castiel — what about you? Have you been with anyone else since you started dating?”

Dean’s expression darkens further.

“No,” Cas answers honestly, and Dean’s head jerks around.

“What? Yes, you have!”

“I told you, I _haven’t._ ”

“You came home with _lipstick_ on your collar, you fucking cliché! And you _reeked_ of eau-du-some-other-dude!”

“I was invited to enjoy the evening with an extremely nice couple I met at Meg’s party,” Cas admits. “And I did try to do that. But I was — not able to proceed.”

“So you didn’t fuck them.”

“I did not. No one even got undressed.”

“Except your tie.”

“Except my tie,” Cas concedes, “Although I think I took that off at the bar. It’s probably still in Meg’s handbag.”

“Oh.”

Dean apparently needs a minute to process this.

“What about all those nights you went off? Or didn’t come back?”

“Meg and Tracy’s. I was getting high and bitching about you,” he adds, since they’re being honest.

Dean purses his lips, though he mostly just looks confused.

“So — you didn’t — no one? Not even something quick when you — I don’t know, went to the corner store for ice cream?”

Cas barks a laugh.

“How fast do you think I can pick someone up? In the middle of the day at a convenience store, no less?”

Dean shrugs, clearly embarrassed.

“Well — it — it’s called a _convenience_ store for a reason, isn’t it?!”

Pamela smothers her laughter with a cough, but Cas doesn’t bother, and he doesn’t think Dean expects him to, either.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. So — when you said you didn’t wanna do that anymore . . . you really meant it.”

“Yes. Obviously, I’ll negotiate, whatever you want, but since you said you don’t, then—”

“Then thank-fucking-God. We’re not. I reserve the right to freak the fuck out if you stay overnight at Meg and Tracy’s or look too long at the server.”

“Then I’m allowed to do the same.”

“I don’t think Meg and Tracy will be inviting me to stay over anytime soon,” Dean retorts snidely, and Cas shrugs.

“I think Meg would like to.”

Dean blinks.

“Seriously? Dude, she hates me.”

“That’s not a dealbreaker for her. And Tracy — finds you very attractive.”

“I’ve never even met Tracy!”

Cas nods.

“It may be a while before you do,” he admits, genuinely guilty, and Dean understands immediately.

“I’m not having a threesome with your closest friends.”

Cas believes this, at least, if only because Tracy would _probably_ put her foot down.

Still . . .

“Thank you. But all the same—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Dean mutters, but he doesn’t seem upset, so Cas will take it.

Pamela’s giving them a faintly amused look.

“Well, alright, then. So you’ve determined a couple of important things about your wants and expectations going forward, as well as cleared up one of your misunderstandings.” She pauses. “You said things had been getting bad for a while, Dean. I imagine the question of do-you-or-don’t-you want to see other people is not the only issue here. You expressed to me your certainty that Castiel was unhappy. What made you think that?”

“He said so.”

“Because you got wasted and wrote it off when I told you I was afraid you’d be like your father and — and that I’d lose you. You told me I’d be _fine._ You _laughed._ ”

Dean shrugs.

“I wasn’t wrong.”

It’s a fucking rollercoaster, is what it is.

“Pamela,” he says calmly. “As you know, I have difficulty using my words. Please tell Dean why he’s an insensitive fucking moron.”

“ _Hey,_ I’m not—”

“Cas,” Pamela says, cutting him off. “Name-calling. Dean — what makes you think Cas would not be profoundly affected by your loss?”

Dean sighs.

“I didn’t — I didn’t say _that,_ I just said — he’d be okay, ultimately. ‘Cause he would be. He doesn’t _need_ me.”

“Grief has very little to do with need.”

“Look, I’m not going to croak when I’m fifty-two, okay? I don’t drink _that_ much.”

“You have been.”

“Well, I had a good reason.”

“Dean,” Pamela starts, tone careful. “I don’t doubt that you were unusually distressed. However, I think we’ve discussed that there aren’t really good reasons for doing something to such excess it becomes self-destructive.”

“Okay? Sure? I don’t — it doesn’t look like I’ll be doing that so much, going forward. So don’t — don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not the only one who worries about it,” Cas protests. “It’s not — it isn’t me being hypersensitive. _Everyone_ worries about you.”

“They shouldn’t,” he insists. “If it gets to be a problem, I’ll scale back.”

“That’s what we’re all _saying._ It already _is_ a problem. You just won’t acknowledge it.”

“How the hell is this an intervention all of the sudden? I thought we were talking about our fucked up relationship.”

“You have a point, Dean,” Pamela says hastily. “I do think we’re getting off-topic. I think this is an important thing to address as an individual, as well as a concern of your partner, but I also think that will take time, and perhaps we should put it on the to-do list.”

Dean sits back with a huff.

“Fine. Whatever.”

Sometimes, it feels like Dean hasn’t changed a bit since he was a sulky ten-year-old, though Cas decides it’s probably better to keep that thought to himself.

“Still — this raises another important point. Castiel, you spoke with me about a . . . disparity, which you perceived in your respective feelings.”

“Disparity?” Dean echoes, sitting up again.

“I did,” he agrees, but — “Please don’t mention it.”

“Stop _doing_ that _,_ ” Dean complains, and Cas glares.

“It’s not my fault she keeps bringing it up.”

“I apologize,” she says, and sounds sincere. “Then, Dean; may I talk about what _you_ said about that?”

“When did I say anything about that?”

“Not using that exact word, but we did discuss that Cas’s significance to you felt different than your significance to him.”

And they are different, absolutely, but Pamela’s talking about it like Dean and Cas had opposing views about it.

“Sure. Might as well get it outta the way; unlike _some_ people, I’m here to make this work.”

“That’s not f—”

“Right, well,” Pamela hurries on. “Dean expressed feeling like he was a habit for you, more than anything. That your particular history was responsible for your attachment to him. However, he strongly feels that — in his words — you’re ‘it’ for him. That he could meet you for the first time tomorrow and be able to know that.”

Cas’s brain stutters over this, a little, and he turns to look at Dean.

“Did you really?”

“Yeah, because it’s true. That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier, when you were being a dick. I don’t want anybody else. Whether I _ever_ met you or not, I don’t think I could feel that way about anybody else. It wouldn’t work out, not in the long term, because they wouldn’t be you.”

“That’s . . . not realistic,” Cas says, mouth dry, and Dean narrows his eyes.

“Gee, thanks a lot. No surprises there, Pamela. What next?”

Pamela looks at Castiel.

“Well, ideally, Cas would be ready to share how he feels about this. Cas?”

Cas looks down, overwhelmed.

“Can you?” he asks, even though he knows it makes him a coward.

“We’ll have to work on that,” she warns him, and he nods. “Alright. Cas — honestly, Cas feels that he has an unhealthy attachment to you. I disagree that it’s unhealthy, but it is very powerful. He’s extremely preoccupied with hiding that attachment from you, however, because he does feel it’s excessive.”

“Uh. Excessive how?”

“Hm. I believe he told me — he wants ‘whatever he can get’ from you. And then he went on to say that he felt he was the more invested party, the more committed of the two of you. That you did not reciprocate the intensity of his feelings.”

Dean makes a weird, decidedly unhappy noise.

“More invested my — I will fucking show you _invested,_ you stupid son of a—”

“Dean,” Pamela reprimands him, and Dean huffs.

“Okay. Okay, Cas. You wanna make it a competition? It’s a fucking competition. I hope you can handle ‘whatever you can get’ from me, because you can bet your ass I’m going to give it to you, and then we’ll see who’s the more goddamn _committed_ person here.”

Dean’s gaze is fierce, challenging, and genuinely furious, it seems, but Cas is not particularly intimidated by this threat, to say the least.

Ecstatic might be a slightly better word.

“Alright,” he says cautiously. He still doesn’t believe Dean could possibly care as much as he, himself, does, but he’s happy to enjoy his efforts if he wants to try and prove it.

And it’s then that Cas realizes, _really_ realizes, that they’re not — they’re not breaking up.

“We’re not breaking up,” he says aloud, looking to Dean for confirmation. “You’re — you’ll stay? At least — try?”

If anything, Dean looks even _more_ pissed.

“I can’t believe you. I can’t _fucking_ believe you. If I had known you were this crazy, I would have — jesus, I don’t know. I sure as hell wouldn’t have tried to do any of that stupid crap I thought was reasonable. I’m crazy, too, but I thought, hey, let’s pretend to be normal for Cas, but _nope,_ Cas isn’t fucking normal himself, there’s no god damn point in trying to figure you out, I’ll just end up screwing myself, _exactly like I did._ ”

He takes a deep breath, and Pamela raises her brows at him.

“Are you finished?”

He hesitates.

“No. No, I — damn it. I didn’t just screw myself, did I? I screwed you over, too, by the sounds of it. Because that’s what I do. I’m a fuckup, and I fucked us up, and — and even if we figure it out today, what about next time? Because I’m gonna keep fucking up, Cas, and — and do you seriously want that? Can you even do it?”

“Of course I can,” Cas answers, because it’s true, and because he’s suddenly terrified this is Dean talking himself _out_ of trying again. “Of course I _want_ to. I love you.”

Dean looks struck.

“Are you — are you sure? I — how are you supposed to love me when this much of me is a fucking wreck?”

“Don’t — don’t _say_ that. I love you because I do and I always have. I love everything about you, Dean, even the bad things, because I know exactly how who you are has been affected by what you’ve been through to give you those qualities. Because it means that I _know_ you, so very well, and it has been a — a privilege, and an honor, to attain that knowledge. And I don’t want to know anybody else like that. I already know that I want to stay with you, Dean. I’ve known that since I was eleven, and even if I may have been uncertain, at times, in what capacity I wanted to do that — I have never changed my mind. Not once.”

“Eleven,” Dean repeats, green eyes wide. “Eleven — _eleven._ How could you possibly—”

“You punched someone and told them to fuck off because they made fun of me. I’ve never looked back.”

Dean stares at him, disbelieving.

“Jesus. That’s — _jesus._ ” He swallows. “So you think we can do this.”

“I do.”

Dean cracks a smile at that, for some reason, and then turns to Pamela.

“What about you? You think we can make it?”

Pamela considers this.

“With effort. Like any other relationship.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means . . .” She thinks. “It means I think neither of you ever learned to communicate, and the fact that you both tend to experience a lot of doubt and insecurity just makes it worse. And unfortunately, those are things you’re going to continue to struggle with.”

Dean gives her a blank look, vaguely unhappy.

“So . . . you’re saying we’re a bad match?”

“On the contrary. The fact that you’ve worked around your issues when you couldn’t solve them, that you’ve constantly reached and accepted compromise even when you didn’t understand each other, even when trust was breaking down — it’s a testament to the fact that you _are_ well-suited, and that you have the care to back it up. Even when it’s not working, you somehow find a way to _make_ it work; to create a new normal, to hold onto each other in spite of the dysfunction. In fact, if just now I told you you were a terrible match and it was bound to end in disaster, I am absolutely confident you would have ignored me.”

Cas is relieved he doesn’t have to point it out; in fact, he was wondering why Dean bothered asking in the first place, because so long as _Dean_ is willing, Cas doesn’t give a fuck about anyone else’s opinion.

Dean licks his lips.

“Yeah. Okay, I see your point.”

“On that note, we’re probably out of time today, unless one of you feels uncomfortable ending here.”

“Uh. No, no, I think — I think we should be okay. Cas?”

Cas nods. They’re going back home together, and they’re going to stay that way, at least for a little while, because they _both_ want to.

Cas thinks they’ll be more than okay.

“Excellent,” Pamela says, smiling. “Still, I think you have a lot you need to talk about. And whatever you’ve said today — I just want to warn you both that you may have to repeat it. Communication is not a one-time deal. As I discussed with Dean, affirmation is a necessary part of a relationship, and _especially_ with your history, you’re going to need to touch base occasionally and tell each other how you feel. That you still feel that way. To help with that, I’d like to recommend you share an appointment once or twice a month, or however often you feel will be most helpful.”

“Yeah. That — that sounds good.” Dean looks at Cas again.

“Yes. It would probably help.” He nods at Pamela. “It did today. Thank you.”

She smiles a little wider.

“Always happy to help. But you both did great, today; I know you fought a lot, but it was mostly constructive, and in your own way, I felt that you were much more open with one another than what I saw last fall. And I hope you continue to talk, and be honest with each other, even when I’m not present.” She leans back. “May I offer a few closing words?”

“Go for it.”

“I think that, beyond your individual struggles, the biggest issue for your relationship is trust. And most people, when they think of trust, they think about not doing things to hurt each other. And that’s an important element of trust — but in your case, it’s also about being able to simply trust that you love each other. That you’re wanted.” She pauses. “You had that, as children, I think. And though I don’t think you knew each other _better_ as children, I do think that knowledge has since been clouded by your doubts and insecurities. But — I would like to see you reestablish that bond. And I think if you work together, if you keep talking, you absolutely can do that. Do you disagree?”

“No,” Cas says softly, because as long as she’s not telling him it’s time to let Dean go, Cas has perhaps learned his lesson about listening to his therapist.

Or at least _considering_ it.

“Sounds good,” Dean mumbles, rubbing his neck. “Here’s, uh. Here’s hoping.”

“I have faith,” Cas says quietly, for Dean’s benefit more than Pamela’s, and Dean gives him an odd look, but says nothing.

Pamela walks them out, locking up behind her, and then bids them goodbye in the parking lot, which is dark enough that Cas realizes they must have kept her late.

He apologizes, but she waves him off with a sly, “Worth it, I think.”

And then they get in the Impala, and Dean begins to drive them home.

Eventually, he breaks the silence.

“Eleven, huh?” he remarks, sounding a little uncertain, despite the cheekiness of the words.

“Yes.” Cas shrugs, somewhat sheepish. “Bobby got mad at you, and I followed you upstairs to bed, and then when you made it clear you’d been so angry because of what was said about _me —_ I just knew.”

“Knew what?” Dean presses, and Cas throws him a sidelong glance.

“That I loved you. That I wanted to be with you forever.”

Dean curses.

“Just like that? So — what if Sam punched that kid and told him to fuck off?”

Cas rolls his eyes.

“Then I would consider Sam a very good friend, indeed, as I do now.”

“You wouldn’t be fighting Val for him?”

“No. Because he’s not you,” Cas says simply, and the admission costs him a lot less than it would have a few months ago, because now he thinks it might be something Dean actually wants to hear.

Dean is quiet for a long time, but for once, Cas isn’t worried.

“The matchbox. D’you remember it?”

“Of course. You never let me look in it, but it went in the cupboard, so I knew it was important.” Cas spent _years_ wondering what was inside of it, was confident it wasn’t about the box itself.

Dean shoots him an awkward smile, and Cas would give anything to know what about that was making him uncomfortable.

“Yeah. It, uh. Remember — I made that bracelet? And I gave it to you?”

“Yes?” Cas had been over the moon, when that had happened. He’d considered the bracelet both an artistic masterpiece and the greatest of his own treasures, it being something _Dean_ had given to him, and he’d been devastated when it had worn to pieces and his mother threw it out.

“Well. Uh. For starters, I made that with you in mind.”

Cas blinks.

“You never said that.”

“Nope. I was too embarrassed. I was terrified you’d think it was dumb, and I wanted to be able to laugh it off, just in case. And then you didn’t — you _loved_ it, and don’t even get me started on how that made me feel — but I was still worried you’d think it was weird if you thought I made it especially for you.”

“I would not have,” Cas says slowly. “Although I might have perished from delight.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean laughs, even though Cas wasn’t kidding. “Anyway — so, uh. You looked pretty upset when you said she pitched it. I was, too. So — so I fished it out of the garbage bin, took it home and cleaned it up, and . . . put it somewhere safe.”

Cas stares, uncomprehending.

“You mean — _that’s_ what’s in the matchbox?”

Dean huffs a laugh.

“Yeah. So, I guess — what I’m saying is — me, too. I didn’t — I didn’t know what it was, but I was definitely — feeling it. And that — that’s still true. I’m not always good at this, but you can be pretty sure that — _whatever_ you’re feeling . . .” Dean clears his throat. “Me, too, man.”

He lets out a slow breath, after that, and they drive the rest of the way in silence.

But that’s fine; there’s a lot more they need to say, Cas knows, and a part of him is still dreading it, because things are broken and have been for a long time, and fixing it is going to take time and effort, no matter how willing they are to give both.

But they _are_ willing, and for right now — it’s enough. It’s _more_ than enough.

It’s fucking _perfect._


	13. honey, you have always been a light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: discussions of addiction, references to past drug overdose, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Chapter title from _One For the Angels_ \- Transviolet.

The high of revelation has settled, once they get home and the front door is shut behind them, and the apartment feels strange around them in the silence. Cas watches Dean in his peripheral — or mostly in his peripheral — as they shrug out of their jackets and take off their shoes, and he moves a little slower than necessary, not wanting to be done first.

He feels nervous, he realizes. He feels much better than he did yesterday, of course, the things Dean said in therapy lingering in his mind, but mostly, he just — he doesn’t know where to go from here.

Dean sets his boots aside, and Cas quickly looks down at the laces on his remaining shoe.

There’s a quiet huff of laughter.

“Cas. I know when you stare at me.”

Cas shrugs, carefully tugging the laces loose.

“Still.”

Dean’s quiet, and when at last, Cas has pulled the boot off and put it next to the other, he makes himself look up.

Dean is leaning against the wall, watching him, green eyes warm.

“Oh.”

One brow lifts.

“What?”

Cas swallows.

“Nothing.”

There’s a frown, at that.

“Hey. Uh. At least for a little while, could you . . .”

Dean trails off, alarmingly uncertain.

“Yes,” Cas says quickly, and a surprised smile replaces the unease.

“Dude. You don’t know what I was going to ask.”

“No, but — the answer’s yes. So please ask.”

He feels stupid after he says it — Dean’s probably not as afraid of hearing _no_ as Cas is, so perhaps this does very little for him — but Dean nods and shuffles a little closer.

“Okay. I just . . . don’t, uh. Don’t say ‘it’s nothing’, or that things are fine, if I ask something like that. I — this-“ He cuts off, mouth tight. “That’s a tough one for me, is all. I really — I like to know where you’re at. And I — I want—” He stops, making a face. “God. This is gonna take a while, isn’t it?”

Cas nods slowly.

“Probably.”

Dean sighs.

“Yeah. Okay. The thing is — I want you to — come to me. If something’s bothering you. Whether it’s my fault or not, I want — I kind of need to know. I need to be able to at least try and help you. It’s, uh. It’s really hard for me, when you don’t let me.”

Cas blinks.

“You help me all the time.”

Dean shakes his head, looking frustrated.

“I’m running blind, there, and even if it’s working, I just — look, you — sometimes you just feel . . . distant. Like I can’t reach you.”

Cas looks back at him, at a loss.

“I’m here. I’ll be here as long as you want me to be.”

“Yeah, but you’re not always _here._ It doesn’t — I don’t always feel like you’re with me.”

Cas doesn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t realize he was doing that, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

“I’m sorry.”

“No — don’t be sorry, just — tell me. Tell me what’s on your mind.” Dean pauses, and then he scrubs a hand down his face. “And send me pictures of your bugs and flowers and shit.”

Cas draws back a little at this muttered addition, startled.

“What?”

Dean shrugs.

“Katya showed me pictures of her cats, at the bar. And the hot pixie from Moondoor showed me pictures of her cosplay, you know?”

Cas tries not to feel bitter at the reminder, struggling to make the connection.

“So — I’m supposed to — compete with them?”

“What? No! No, you’re just-” Dean grits his teeth, looking away. “Aw, fuck. Forget it. Just — don’t give me ‘nothing’ answers. Talk to me, Cas.”

Cas frowns.

“Then talk to me.”

Dean just sighs.

“Should have seen that one coming,” he mutters, then jerks his head toward the kitchen. “Tea?”

“Are you going to tell me what you meant to say?”

Dean nods.

“Yeah. Just trying to figure out how.”

“Alright.”

Cas puts the kettle on, and Dean leans back against the counter, clearly deep in thought.

Cas tries not to feel nervous as he waits, but Dean stays silent as the water starts to boil, and even when the kettle clicks off and Cas starts steeping the tea, he says nothing.

Cas starts to worry he’s not _going_ to, when finally, Dean speaks.

“Okay,” he mumbles, eyes on the floor. “The thing is — I — these random strangers, right? They want me. Or — not me, maybe, but something I can give them.”

“I’m aware.” Dean might not _technically_ be asking Cas to compete, but Cas feels like he is, anyway.

There will always be other people who recognize Dean’s worth, and they will want all the things that Cas does.

“So they try and impress me. They, uh. They share parts of themselves with me.”

“Right,” Cas agrees uncertainly, and Dean nods.

“You don’t.”

Cas blinks.

“I don’t?”

“And I know — I get that you’re independent, and that’s great, and I don’t expect you to be like you were when we were kids — but it’d just — if you can, it’d be nice if sometimes, it felt like you wanted me. Me, in particular, I mean.” Dean takes a deep breath. “It’d be nice if it didn’t feel like you were always holding everything back.”

Cas knows, very well, how hard it is to feel unwanted. To feel that all you want most is being withheld. He knows how hard it is to live like that, even if you accept that you’re not entitled.

He thinks it’s even harder to hear that he may have done that to Dean.

“I’m sorry. I thought — when you asked for the open relationship, I was struggling-”

Dean starts shaking his head, looking frustrated.

“That’s not what I mean,” he says. “Before that. Before we were even dating. And I — I know you had your reasons, and I know I wasn’t always fair — I know I hurt you — but . . .”

Cas waits, heart in his shoes.

“When we were kids, I felt — I felt like I was your whole world, sometimes.” Dean whispers, expression troubled as he stares at the kitchen floor. “And that was wrong, and this wouldn’t work, if you felt that way now, but — if I could just be a bigger part of it. If it — if it seemed like _sometimes_ , at least, you needed me. Just a little.”

Cas doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry,” he finally manages, though the words are inadequate.

“No — don’t be sorry, I-”

“I am, though. I should be.” Cas takes a deep breath, tries to clear the lump in his throat. “You’re right. I hold things back. I — I hold back everything I can.”

At last, Dean looks at him, disappointment heavy in his gaze.

“Why?”

Cas shrugs helplessly.

“Because I don’t know. I don’t know which things you’ll want, if any, and which things will make you pull away. The reality is, Dean, you have a lot to offer. To anyone. Yes, you have your flaws, but — they pale in comparison to your virtues.”

Dean stares back, searching.

“So do yours.”

Cas shakes his head.

“When was the last time I did anything for you?”

Dean looks startled.

“I — what do you mean?”

“I mean you probably can’t remember, because I don’t. I don’t know what _to_ do. You take care of people, Dean. But I don’t. I’ve never taken care of anyone in my life, and I can’t do that for you, now.”

Dean starts forward, upset in every line of his body.

“Cas, that’s not — you’re looking at this all wrong. Yeah, I cook for you; I clean sometimes. But you bring me pie, and you clean, too, and a lot of that’s shit we’d have to do if we lived on our own, anyway. I don’t want you to _do_ things for me. I just — Cas, I just want you to — to love me.”

“But I don’t know how,” Cas protests. “I — I do love you, with everything I am. I always have and I always will. But — it’s like you just told me. It’s like _Pamela_ told me. You can’t know that. And I don’t know how to show you, I don’t know what you need. I don’t know what you _want._ When we first got together — I thought you loved me. You told me you were mine. But you never said why. I — I never have any idea what’s keeping you here.”

Dean’s shoulders sag.

“Cas . . .”

“And I didn’t tell you, either,” Cas continues miserably. “I told you I loved you and I thought — I thought if I put up with the things that hurt me, that was enough. But now you’re telling me you don’t feel wanted, that I don’t give you enough, and that — it’s not even the first time I’m hearing that, Dean. Pamela said that, too. She told me it probably hurt you, that I never reached out first. And you know what I did? I tried, and the moment it got confusing, the moment I felt unsure, I — I gave up.”

Green eyes search his, lost.

“When was that?”

Cas shrugs.

“After she told me — that you might be feeling unwanted. I didn’t know how to fix it, so I . . . I tried to have to sex with you more. And then you said all those things and I thought I’d been too needy, so I stopped.”

Dean looks stunned.

“I thought you just wanted sex. I mean, you always want sex.”

Cas shuts his eyes.

“I _don’t._ And I didn’t want sex so much as I just — I wanted to be close to you. But sex is all I know. I don’t know how to do anything else, Dean.” Cas opens his eyes, vision blurry. “Maybe it doesn’t matter how much I love you, if I’m bad at it.”

Cas almost never thinks of his mother, and if he thinks of growing up, he thinks of Dean. Certainly, he’s never angry at her, never bitter over things that happened long ago, never wistful over the kind of life he could have had, if she’d been different.

Right now, though — right now, he thinks of her, and he is every bit as angry and bitter as he never understood the point of being, because according to Pamela, she may be one of the reasons why he can’t be what Dean needs.

There’s a long, fraught silence.

“You didn’t really think I loved you.”

Cas freezes.

“I did.”

Dean shakes his head.

“Not really. Not the way you needed to, at least.”

“I’m sorry,” Cas mumbles. “It’s how I am, apparently.”

Dean sighs, raking a hand through his hair.

“No. I mean, maybe. But it’s me, too. I couldn’t show you, and I didn’t tell you, so . . . you didn’t know.”

“Because I’m bad at understanding thi-”

“Cas,” Dean interrupts, leaning against the counter with a frown. “Look. That’s not — I don’t say that, alright? I’ve caught shit in every relationship I’ve ever had, ‘cause that just — it doesn’t come easy.”

Cas shakes his head.

“You shouldn’t have to, if you’re not comfortable with it.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but — it’s something most people can do. Even if it takes ‘em a while, they get there.”

“That makes it sound like you never said it.”

Dean shrugs, looking tired.

“Before last night, the last person I said that to was Sammy. After our big fight over California. Before _that—_ ” Abruptly, he scowls. “Son of a _bitch_.”

“What?”

“ _You._ I told _you,_ because Anna left and even though I did everything short of handcuff you to me for the entire three years before it — you thought — you told me—” Dean glances over to him, resentful, and maybe a little bit sad. “Like it didn’t even occur to you.”

Cas hesitates.

“It didn’t. Why would it?”

Dean’s forehead creases.

“Eleven. You said you loved me since you were _eleven._ You never thought the feeling might be mutual?”

Cas swallows.

“No,” he says slowly, then repeats, “Why would it? You did everything for me, Dean. I didn’t do anything for you.”

Dean straightens, clearly frustrated.

“I told you, it’s not about _doing_ things, Cas—”

“Then _what_ , Dean? What — what makes you love me? What’s going to make us work?”

Dean throws up his hands.

“The same thing that _always_ makes us work, even when we’ve fucked ourselves six ways to Sunday, Cas! We’re just better together, okay? You — you make me _happy._ You always did.”

“Except I _haven’t_ been. I haven’t made you happy in over a decade—”

“Of course not!” Dean snaps. “You wanna know what makes a person unhappy? Thinking they’re losing the thing that _makes_ them happy. And for most of the last decade, I thought—”

He cuts off, mouth twisting, eyes pained. Cas doesn’t understand how he could have missed this, any of it.

And as always, he just watches helplessly, unsure what to do.

“The point,” Dean starts again, voice rough. “The point is — I don’t know how to love you the way you need, either. So — let’s learn. We’ll do it together — just like we always used to.”

And there’s a part of Cas — a very large part, if he’s being honest — that doubts it. That doubts this is something he can be taught, that this is something he’ll ever be able to do for Dean, the way Dean needs him to.

But there’s a bigger part that’s selfish, and more importantly, _determined._

“Alright,” he agrees, struggling to keep his voice even. “That sounds good.”

Dean nods shortly.

“Good.”

They’re quiet for a moment, and then Dean takes a breath.

“Maybe we should leave it there, for right now. You, uh. You wanna watch some TV?”

Cas nods, relieved.

“I’ll get the tea.”

It’s awkward, watching TV.

It’s nice, in many ways; Dean is sitting next to him, and the silence is mostly comfortable. Cas is still wondering what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling, but he’s mostly confident it’s none of the things he’s been terrified of, and he’s probably more relaxed than he has been in months.

But it’s still awkward.

He thinks he’d feel better, if they were a little closer, if Dean had an arm around him, like he’s done a few times before, but things are fragile, and Cas will figure that part out later.

For now — this is good.

“I hated that you said that,” Dean says abruptly, quiet, and Cas’s stomach pitches.

“Said what?” he asks quickly, scrambling to understand where he was wrong.

“When Anna went abroad.” Dean’s eyes are still trained on the TV, arms folded, though Cas can tell he’s not really seeing it. “When you said she was the only person who loved you.”

“I thought she was.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Dean sighs. “I was trying so hard. Especially after she left, I — the thought of you going away, Cas — I was willing to do whatever I had to keep you.”

Cas listens, surprise staying any reassurance he might normally try to offer.

He didn’t think Dean worried about that kind of thing, or ever even thought of it, at all.

“Just — Pam said you thought your attachment was unhealthy, but — Cas. You don’t know the things I want from you. That I always wanted from you. They’re not things you’re supposed to ask for from another person.” At last, Dean turns to him, eyes serious. “It’s just fucked up. And I _won’t_ ask you for them, but — I want them.”

“What are they?” Cas can’t help but ask, mouth dry.

Dean shakes his head.

“Not important. The important thing is that you know. I’m not good at asking, or telling. But I — I always did whatever I could think of, to make sure you’d want to stay. That you would. And the last few months — as shitty as it turned out, that’s what I was doing.” Dean takes a breath. “I don’t mind trying, Cas. You said you’d let me do anything? Well, I’m willing to _do_ anything. So just — let me know. I want to. And — I want to know that I’m doing it right.”

Cas looks back, stunned.

“Okay. I — I’ll try.”

Dean nods, shoulders sagging a little.

“Okay. Thank you.” He clears his throat. “Fucking exhausting.”

“It is.”

Dean looks at him for another moment, then nods again, shifting away and turning his attention back to the television.

Cas tries to do the same, and only partially succeeds.

Truthfully, he’s tempted to start something. He’s feeling antsy, feeling a sense of urgency and uncertainty both, and his instincts are telling him to resolve it all by touching Dean. He knows it’s wrong, doesn’t even feel like sex, right now, but he’s not sure how to be close, and he’s afraid they still won’t be, even after all f that.

He inhales slowly, and Dean immediately looks over.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Cas swallows. “Just, um. Pamela said — well, basically, she told me my mother didn’t love me enough. And now I’m afraid no one else will, either.”

Dean frowns, and then he reaches for the remote, hitting pause. Cas flinches at the sudden quiet.

“You know I do, right?”

Cas hesitates, then nods.

“I do. But I — I get confused. About what that means.”

Dean makes a face.

“Well, for us — all the ways, Cas. You’re my best friend, my family, my — this.”

Cas shakes his head.

“No. I get confused about what it means I can have.”

Slowly, Dean nods.

“Okay. What do you want it to mean?”

Unsure, Cas just looks back.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know what you think you need it to mean?”

Again, Cas hesitates.

“No.”

Dean watches him, quiet.

“You know, Cas,” he eventually says. “You were always there for me.”

“I don’t know that that’s true.”

Dean nods.

“It is. When I needed you — you always stepped up. Dropped everything. You took good care of me.”

Cas frowns.

“You were always the one taking care of me.”

Dean smiles slightly.

“You were always the one letting me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t want to do anything without you, Cas. Felt like I could take on anything, if you were with me.”

“I don’t know why you’d feel that way. I’m — I’m weak, Dean. Useless. I always have been.”

Dean’s smile fades.

“Cas. ’Useless’ doesn’t show up in a parking lot in the dead of the night. ‘Useless’ doesn’t hold me on the nights I need it and can’t bring myself to ask. ‘Useless’ doesn’t look out for my family. It doesn’t put up with my temper tantrums, forgive me as soon as I go looking for it, doesn’t make me laugh and sit with my drunk ass on rooftops or hate my dad for me because I can’t, even when I should. It doesn’t fight for me, and it sure as hell doesn’t stay with me, after all the fuckups and misunderstanding we’ve been through. ‘Useless’ doesn’t make me feel worth a damn, just by sticking by me.”

Cas stares, eyes wide.

“Dean, I — I don’t-”

“You’re not useless. And — and to prove it, I’m gonna ask you to do something for me, alright?”

Cas quickly nods, searching Dean’s face.

“Anything.”

Dean licks his lips.

“Okay. Put — could you put your arm around me? While we sit here?”

Cas lifts his brows, taken aback.

“What?”

Dean frowns at him.

“Cas.”

“Of course,” Cas says hastily, scooting closer and fumbling to get his arm around Dean. “Um, is this — like this? Is this-”

“However you wanna do it,” Dean mutters, and Cas — he's a little annoyed. How is he supposed to do it right if Dean won’t _tell_ him?

Dean sighs.

“It’s hard,” he explains. "To always be the one to reach out. Okay?”

And yes, it takes Cas a few moments to work through it, but at last, he understands.

“Oh.” Dean waits, tense beneath his arm, and Cas clears his throat. “Actually — um. Can you lie down?”

Dean squints at him for a second, but then he shrugs Cas’s arm off and shoos him away, shifting down onto his side. Cas follows suit, tucking himself into the warm space between the back of the sofa and Dean.

And then, after a beat of hesitation, he slips his arm around Dean’s waist.

Dean immediately settles back against him.

“Thank you,” he mumbles.

Cas nods, Dean’s hair tickling his nose.

“In therapy. You, uh. You mentioned this.”

Dean huffs a laugh.

“Figures. I have to literally come right out and say shit with you, don’t I?”

“Sorry,” Cas offers, and Dean covers the hand on his stomach, squeezing.

“Not criticism, Cas. Just me feeling awkward about being needy and having to admit it.”

Cas closes his eyes.

“You’re not as needy as I am.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Cas nods.

“Turn the TV back on, Dean.” He hesitates. “And — may I please be the little spoon, next time?”

For a moment, Dean doesn’t respond.

“This is fine, too,” Cas says hastily. “Actually, I — I prefer being the big spoon.”

Dean snorts.

“You fucking liar, Cas,” he retorts, sounding strangely cheerful. “And yeah, you can be the little spoon next time. Mostly, I was trying to decide if I should ask you to pinch me.”

“Why would you want me to do that?”

Dean huffs.

“Stop fishing and hand me the remote, Cas.”

Puzzled, Cas decides that since Dean is warm in his arms — because he _wants_ to be — the rest of life’s mysteries can wait.

He turns the TV back on.

They order pizza for dinner, and when the plates are in the sink and Cas is starting to look a little droopy, Dean puts the kettle back on and insists Cas go lie down.

“Set something up on the laptop and I’ll be right in.”

Cas looks like he wants to argue, but apparently decides against it.

“Alright. I’ll . . . see you soon.”

“Five minutes, tops.”

Cas nods and disappears down the hall.

When Dean gets to the bedroom, tea tray in hand, the laptop is open and Cas is in bed, pillows piled behind him.

Piled right in the center of the headboard, so if Dean wants something to lean against, he’s going to have to sit right next to Cas.

Dean didn’t put any honey or splenda in it, but he swears his tea almost tastes sweet.

Cas is staring at him when Dean sleepily blinks his eyes open, the next morning.

“You’re up.”

Cas nods.

“Not for long.” He looks a little guilty when he says it, though, and Dean’s willing to bet he’s been up for a while.

“Uh-huh.” Dean yawns, shifting a little closer, studying him. “Used to do this when we were kids, before you turned into a nightowl. I’d catch you watching me sleep all the time.”

Cas looks away, mouth flat.

“You caught me watching you all the time, period.”

Dean could swear Cas’s cheeks are turning red.

“Yeah. Weirder when I couldn’t look back, though. I accused you of trying to count my freckles, once.”

Cas shifts onto his back, clearly flustered.

“Well, I wasn’t.”

Dean smiles.

“You were.”

“I liked your freckles.”

“That makes one of us.”

“They deserved to be loved,” Cas retorts. “Clearly, I had to be one to do it.”

Dean grins.

“Yeah? What about now?”

Cas turns away, burying his face in the pillow, and doesn’t answer.

Dean frowns, uneasy.

“Cas?”

“Sorry,” Cas mumbles.

Dean reaches out, about to touch his back, and then thinks better of it.

“You’re fine,” he says cautiously. “What’s up?”

He waits, half-afraid Cas is going to say ‘nothing’ and hide in his pillow until Dean leaves for work. Which — Dean’s not about to say he’s never been guilty of that kind of thing, but -

They agreed to try, didn’t they?

On the other hand, it’s not like he can expect shit to fix itself over night. In fact, after everything that happened yesterday, Cas actually probably wants some space away from Dean to work thr-

“You’re flirting with me.”

Dean’s brain grinds to a halt.

“Huh?”

“You’re flirting,” Cas repeats.

Dean draws back, troubled, though Cas isn’t looking at him.

“Oh. I, uh. I didn’t know it bothered you.”

“No — no, it—” Cas’s head turns, so Dean can just see the line of his cheek beyond his ear. When he continues, his voice comes out clearer. “It’s a good feeling, Dean. I don’t know what to do with it.”

Dean stares at the back of his head, at a loss.

“I . . . don’t know what to do, either.”

“You did this when we first got together. I — I had seen you, with other people, for years, and it was — I hadn’t thought I was envious, but it — it was one of my favorite things about dating.”

“Oh.”

“You haven’t, for a while.”

“We weren’t really in a good place for it. And — I didn’t think it did much for you.”

“It does a lot,” Cas mumbles. “And now that I know what it’s like to lose it, it — it does more.”

“Okay. Should I . . . not?”

“No, I just—” Cas cuts off, takes a deep breath. “I’m . . . overwhelmed, is all. The weekend was hard, and then yesterday, and — it’s just, um. It’s been a lot.”

Which — yeah, Dean can understand that.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Cas assures him, voice a little rough, and then there’s a quiet sniff, and instinct tells Dean it’s not congestion.

Dean’s throat goes tight.

“Do you want me to go make coffee?” Dean asks, hoping Cas understands the real question.

_Do you want to be alone?_

“No.” It comes almost immediately, and Dean relaxes a little.

Because the reality is, Cas was flirting back, and it felt good, like one of his favorite ways to wake up, ever, and even if this is a little hiccup, it’s not a _bad_ hiccup, and Dean’s not ready to get out of bed and leave him if he doesn’t have to.

“Is it okay if — can I touch you?”

There’s a pause, and then Cas’s head moves in what Dean hopes is a nod.

“Yes.”

Dean carefully shifts over, settling against Cas’s back and putting an arm around him.

He’s gratified to _feel_ the tension leave Cas’s body.

“This okay?” he asks anyways, and Cas nods.

“Yes.”

Dean lifts his arm, tugging the blanket up over them both.

“You have to be at work,” Cas points out, but he still sounds a little shaky, and if there’s ever a good reason to skip your morning coffee, Dean thinks this is it.

“Alarm doesn’t go off for twenty minutes,” he murmurs. “Too early for you to be up, anyway. How ‘bout you try to sleep and I’ll count your fingers or something?”

Cas snorts, and then he huffs, and then he wriggles around to face Dean, tucking his head against his shoulder.

“There should be ten.”

Dean kisses his temple, closing his eyes.

“You never know. Wouldn’t put it past you to be hiding some, you sneaky bastard.”

Cas sighs, and if Dean thinks he feels a pair of chapped lips press against his neck, at which point he realizes his eyes are so dry they’re kind of stinging, it’s fine.

It’s too early to worry, anyway.

It’s not until later, just before lunch, that Dean really understands what Cas was dealing with, this morning.

His phone chimes just when he’s shutting the hood of a Charger, and he goes ahead and wipes his hands on the nearest rag, fishing it out of his pocket.

It’s a surprise to see a text from Cas; Cas doesn’t text him unless he has a question, and Dean figured he’d want to spend the day thinking, sorting things out without Dean hovering.

It’s even more of a surprise to open it and find a picture of a duck pond, late morning sun glinting off the surface.

 _This is a duck pond,_ the accompanying text reads, and Dean snorts, despite the funny feeling in his chest.

He looks at it for a long moment, and then another one appears, a fuzzy brown caterpillar weaving across the sidewalk.

_This is a caterpillar._

Dean covers his face with his free hand.

“I can see that, you dork,” he mumbles, but he couldn’t help the smile if he tried, or the warm, giddy feeling suddenly coursing through him.

On impulse, he starts a text back.

_Send me you._

He hits send and waits.

A minute later, a new image loads, and sure enough — there’s Cas, hair sweat-damp and wild, blue-eyes squinting at the camera in one of the most awkward selfies Dean’s ever seen, a clear question on Cas’s face.

Dean’s knees feel a little weak.

 _Thank you,_ he shoots back, and reluctantly tucks the phone back in his pocket. There’s still half an hour til his lunch break, and he should probably get back to work.

Five minutes later, he pulls his phone back out and sets the picture as his lock screen.

It’s fortunate that Billie gave him an extension, because Cas is absolutely useless all day.

He can’t focus on anything. He goes for a run around lunchtime, taking his pictures and then running another twenty minutes before he musters the courage to send them — Dean _asked._ Why was it still so difficult? — and then Dean asks for one of _him,_ and the run ends up being a pointless exercise — literally.

Cas doesn’t know why he wanted that picture, and he’s still struggling with Dean wanting the others, wanting Cas to share these stupid, inconsequential things.

And even if he didn’t have that question plaguing him, there’s everything they discussed in therapy, and after. Cas finds himself wishing he’d taken notes, afraid he forgot something, afraid he’s remembering it wrong, that he’s sitting here, _thinking_ Dean had said something, when it will turn out it’s neither what he said or meant at all.

At three, he gives up work entirely and starts vacuuming.

By five, the bathroom is sparkling and the kitchen has been mopped, counters and cabinets wiped down.

By six, Cas has Tuna Helper simmering on the stove, soft indie music a soothing backdrop to his work, nonetheless to be silenced as soon as hears the key in the lock.

Dean comes in at six-thirty, and Cas shuffles awkwardly to the kitchen archway, hands in his pockets.

“Hello, Dean,” he greets him, and Dean pauses, studying him for a second.

“Hey, Cas,” he returns softly. He turns, shutting the door, and gives Cas a small smile. “How, uh. How was your day?”

Cas shrugs.

“Good,” he lies, toeing the line of tile grout in front of him. “Yours?”

“Good.” Dean shrugs out of his jacket, eyes flicking back to Cas’s periodically. “Thanks for the, um. The pictures.”

“Sure.” Cas hesitates, trying to figure out how to ask why Dean wanted the last one.

He can’t, so he stays quiet.

“Have a good run?”

“Um. Yes.”

“Awesome.”

Dean takes off his shoes, and Cas watches quietly, uncertain.

He feels like he should be doing something, but he has no idea what.

“I made dinner.”

Dean glances up, smiling.

“Thought something smelled good.”

Cas shrugs.

“Just Tuna Helper. Nothing interesting.”

Maybe Cas _should_ learn to cook better. It doesn’t appeal to him, but it’s not really fair for Dean to prepare meals all the time, is it? He must get tired, and he shouldn’t have to put up with shitty box mix just because Cas is lazy and unmotivated.

“You okay?”

Cas blinks, shaking himself.

“Yes. Fine.”

Dean frowns.

“Okay.” Dean sets his shoes aside, quiet for a moment. “You, uh, you remember some of what we talked about yesterday?”

Yes. Or he’s been trying to, for the entire day.

“It’s hard to keep track of it all.”

Dean nods.

“Right. She said some of it might need to be repeated.”

Cas shrugs.

“That makes sense.”

“Yeah.” Dean takes a deep breath. “Not trying to pry, but — that, uh. That pause didn’t seem fine, is all. You wanna talk about it?”

Cas winces. Dean hadn’t asked for much, yesterday, not by any functional person’s standards, and despite his efforts, Cas has already failed to provide it.

“Yes. Sorry, I just — I wondered if I should practice cooking. I haven’t done it, in a long time, but — I should be able to cook actual food. And I should do it more often.”

Dean hesitates.

“If that’s something you want.”

“What about you? Don’t you get tired of coming home from work and having to?”

Dean shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Not necessarily. You usually sit out here with me.” He shrugs again. “It’s nice.”

“You could sit out here with me, for once,” Cas tries, and Dean nods.

“Yeah. That sounds nice.”

Cas scrutinizes him, frustrated.

“Are you sure?”

Dean makes a face, and then he sighs.

“Remember how we talked about me wanting shit from you that I shouldn’t?”

“You were very vague,” Cas points out, and Dean nods.

“For good reason, Cas. I’ll level with you. I like cooking for you. I like that you don’t cook, and that part of you feels like you can’t. I like thinking I need to get home and — and feed you. That if I don’t, no, you won’t starve — but you’ll miss having me do it.”

“Oh.” Cas blinks, struggling to process. “Uh — why?”

Dean grimaces.

“Because. Because you’re not the only person with a fucked up childhood or a fucked up personality or whatever it is we get to blame for this shit, and I get a massive fucking thrill out of thinking you need me for something.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m taking a shower now.”

That said, Dean pivots, stalking into the hall and disappearing into the bathroom without waiting for a response.

Which is a good thing. Cas doesn’t know that he could have provided one.

He returns to the stove, stirring the thick, creamy mixture, not sure what to make of it.

He’s still a little lost when Dean returns.

“Alright,” Dean announces, heading for the cupboard to get plates. “Let’s do this. You practice a few dishes, so on nights when I’m late, you can get dinner ready and then we can just hang out and I won’t feel like such a creep. Sound good?”

“Uh. Yeah. Sure.” Cas hesitates. “But — I look forward to you coming home, Dean, whether food is involved or not.”

Dean pauses, then slowly sets the plates down on the counter and turns.

“Really.”

“Of course.”

Dean studies him for a moment.

Then he ducks his chin, rubbing his forehead.

“Well. I look forward to coming home to you, too,” he mumbles, and then he turns and picks up the plates. “What do you wanna watch?”

Cas blinks, and then he shrugs, stepping to the side so Dean can start plating dinner.

“Whatever is fine.”

“Yeah?” Dean clears his throat, reaching for the spatula. “Put on some _Dr. Sexy._ ”

“Tell me about affirmation,” Cas blurts out, just as all the lights in the elevator the doctors are stuck in shut off.

Dean freezes.

“Uh. What?”

“I didn’t — Pamela didn’t get that far, with me. But it sounds like she talked to you about it, more than once.” Cas is bad at this, and he’s still trying to work out what, exactly, he’s supposed to be doing, but he’s putting together a theory as best he can. “And you even tried. If it’s important — I should do it, too.”

Dean looks a little lost, fumbling for the remote and turning the volume down.

“Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I guess — makes sense. I mean, she said that, too, that — you know. That’s a thing. That people need.”

Cas nods.

“Alright.”

Dean nods back, looking incredibly awkward, and Cas waits.

“Okay. So — it’s just — you know. Letting people know you . . . care. And, uh. That you think well of them. Believe in ‘em. Making sure they know . . . I don’t know. The good stuff you think about them. You know?”

Cas doesn’t. It’s not that he doesn’t understand what Dean is saying, but — he has no idea what that looks like.

“Did she give you examples?”

Dean hesitates.

“Not exactly,” he starts, unsure in a way that makes Cas feel itchy. Dean reaches up, rubs the back of his neck. “She said, though — she asked me if that would have made things easier, the last ten years. If, you know. If you’d been telling me I was a good friend, that you — that you were glad we were friends. That I was there.”

“And . . . would it?” Cas asks, though he suspects it’s unnecessary.

Dean wouldn’t have mentioned it, if the answer was no.

“I mean. Yeah.”

Cas slumps a little, aching.

He wants to believe he would have provided that, had he known Dean wanted it, wants to believe it would have been a simple thing to say — but he knows better.

“I’m sorry.”

Dean quickly shakes his head.

“Don’t be. I never said stuff like that to you.”

Cas shrugs.

“I wasn’t always sure we were still friends,” he admits. “And I often wondered if you’d rather I not be there. Even if any of that had occurred to me — I would have assumed you didn’t want to hear it.”

Dean’s face falls a little.

“Right. You, uh. You said that. That sometimes you thought I hated you.”

“Sometimes. It — it felt like we couldn’t see each other without you finding something wrong with me. If I showed up late, you’d make a crack about what I was probably doing. If I — if I expressed an interest in something, you’d make a crack about my reasons for it. I’d even try to be quiet when we got together with friends, but—”

Dean frowns, looking increasingly troubled.

“But?”

“But someone would say something and then somehow, you’d find a way to make a joke about me, or the things I did, and it — it felt like that’s all you ever thought of me. That I was ridiculous, at best, and at worst — beneath contempt.”

Dean swallows.

“I didn’t realize I was doing that. Or I — I mean, I did, but not that often. And I thought — that’s what we do, now. We just — we poke at each other.”

“I didn’t want to,” Cas says, looking down. “Of course, if you started something, I always finished it, but — I didn’t want to.”

Dean lets out a breath.

“Neither did I. I just — there was a lot of shit I never worked out, with you. And when I saw you, it — I don’t know, it just got to me. I didn’t know how to handle it.”

Cas nods.

“I understand.” And he does. He remembers being young, watching Dean struggle to adjust. He remembers getting older and recognizing the things Dean never quite came to terms with, things that needed more adjusting every time they came up again. He remembers feeling helpless, wishing he could fix it and having no idea how to even offer comfort.

He never thought he’d be one of those things.

“But we _did_ ‘poke’ at each other. There wasn’t — there wasn’t space for that.”

“There wasn’t,” Dean agrees. “But she said there should have been. We wouldn’t have got so bad, maybe. And — there should be now. ‘Cause I obviously don’t hate you, and I — I want you to know all that. And I’d feel better if I knew you weren’t over there wishing you’d taken the out when I gave it to you.”

“I don’t want an out from you,” Cas insists, and Dean sort of smiles, though he still looks unsure.

“See? You’re a natural.”

“I mean it. And I was glad we were friends. I was glad I was part of your life, period.”

Green eyes soften.

“Me, too, Cas.”

“And I want to be part of it now. And I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”

Dean nods.

“Yeah. I, uh. I’ve had enough of that, too, I think.” He clears his throat. “Can I put my arm around you?”

Cas hastens to close the space between them.

“Please.”

Dean does, squeezing him tight, and Cas decides affirmation is a very good thing, indeed.

The next day is a little easier. Cas goes for a run earlier, texting Dean a picture of a white snail and a budding cherry tree, though he experiences some anxiety over how many and how often he’s supposed to send them — surely Dean doesn’t want _all_ the pictures Cas tends to take — and after his shower, he manages to get a few solid hours worth of work done.

He gets a little antsy again, when the hour grows late, and he ends up unpacking some of the boxes from the spare room, things he thought he’d have to move back out, after the bet; it helps, and by the time he hears Dean at the door, he feels a little calmer.

The way Dean smiles when Cas comes out to greet him utterly obliterates that calm, but Cas supposes he can live with that.

“Welcome home,” he offers. He sincerely hopes the bizarre, unnerving shyness he’s feeling fades, and soon.

“Thanks, Cas. How’s it going?”

Cas shrugs.

“Good. I was just unpacking some things in the spare room.”

Dean looks startled.

“Yeah?”

“Some books and records.”

Dean nods, looking strangely pleased.

“Awesome.”

Cas tilts his head, questioning, and Dean shrugs, throwing his jacket on the hook.

“Guess part of me thought you were still deciding whether you wanted to live here or not,” he jokes, but even Cas recognizes the thread of uncertainty.

“No. I was just being lazy. It never occurred to me to move out.”

“I don’t know, you did it once already.”

Cas gives him a sharp look, and Dean makes a face.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean — fuck.” He takes a deep breath. “I just—”

Cas shakes his head.

“I understand.” He shuffles forward a little, catching Dean’s eye. “I’m hungry, though. Do you mind . . .?”

Dean’s relief is palpable.

“Yeah, of course. Put the radio on for me?”

Cas settles in at the kitchen table while Dean works, and once everything is in the pan, sizzling away, Dean comes to sit across from him.

Beneath the table, his foot settles against one of Cas’s.

“How’s the novel going?”

Cas looks up.

“Better. I think I’ll make my extended deadline, at least.”

Dean sighs.

“All this probably didn’t help.”

“No,” Cas agrees. “But . . . it turned out better than I expected. By far.”

Dean’s quiet for a moment.

“The snail was cute.”

“Oh. Yes. I thought so.”

“You were cute, too,” Dean adds, barely more than a mumble, and Cas stills, wondering if he heard him right.

“Why did you want a picture of me?”

Dean shrugs, smiling slightly.

“Been a while since I got one.”

“You can’t use them for anything,” Cas protests, and Dean considers this for a moment.

Then he clears his throat, standing, and pulls his phone out of his pocket, setting it on the table.

“Yeah, you can. Gonna stir that,” he says, and heads back to the stove.

After a moment, Cas reaches for the phone, tapping the side button.

His own face fills the screen.

“Oh.” Across the kitchen, Dean hums. “I — that’s not a very good picture.”

“Shut up, Cas. It’s a great picture.”

Cas hesitates. Then he stands, approaching the stove and trying to figure out how to ask for what he wants.

Dean turns slightly, raising a brow.

“Yeah?”

“Just — it seems . . . unfair.”

“Unfair,” Dean repeats, curious. “How so?”

“I don’t have any of you.”

“Well, that’s your problem, isn’t it?” Dean winks, and Cas’s pulse duly quickens. “Not like you don’t have plenty of opportunities.”

“So it’s okay if I take one.”

“Knock yourself out, Cas.”

Cas nods, and quickly steps out into the living area to retrieve his phone.

“Get my good angle, will you?”

“All your angles are good,” Cas retorts, pulling up the camera. “Look toward the light.”

“I’m trying to cook, here, Cas. The light’s behind me.”

Cas scowls.

“It will only take a second.”

“No, it won’t. Gimme a minute and I’ll cooperate, okay?”

Cas lowers his phone suspiciously.

“Really?”

Dean smiles, stirring the vegetables in the pan.

“Promise.”

It is, in fact, _three_ minutes before Dean finally flicks off the stove and turns around, but when he does, he plucks Cas’s phone out of his hand and uses his free hand to tug him close.

“I want a picture of _you_ ,” Cas protests, and Dean nods.

“And you’ll get one.” He switches the phone to selfie mode, holding it out. “Smile.”

“But-”

Cas doesn’t get to finish. Dean turns, pressing his lips to Cas’s cheek, and takes the picture.

“Turned out great,” Dean assures him, inspecting it while Cas stands, frozen and speechless, beside him. “Wanna see?”

Without a word, Cas snatches the phone out of his hand and stalks to the bathroom, where he stares at the photo for a solid five minutes.

Dean is leaning against the counter when he comes back, looking curious.

“It did turn out great,” Cas mutters, cheeks hot. “Dinner smells good. Thank you for cooking.”

He opens the cupboard, reaching for a plate.

“Sure,” Dean says quietly. Cas can’t see him, but he can hear the smile in it. “You mind forwarding me that picture?”

Cas pauses, closing his eyes, heart pounding.

This is _ridiculous_.

“Alright,” he agrees. He quietly takes a breath, pulling out a second plate and turning, offering it to Dean as nonchalantly as possible.

His nonchalance fails him. Dean’s eyes are bright, warm, and he’s smiling at Cas like-

Cas swallows.

“Table or sofa?” he asks.

Dean looks at him for another moment, and Cas looks back, helpless to do anything different.

“Sofa,” Dean finally says, soft, and Cas forces himself to step past, to start plating his food.

“Okay.”

Their elbows brush, as they eat. Cas struggles to focus on the show. Dean is warm and close and he was flirting with Cas in the kitchen and he kissed his cheek and Cas is feeling many, many things.

But Dean keeps glancing over and smiling at him, too, and when he sets his plate on the coffee table and settles back in, his thigh presses up against Cas’s and stays there.

Cas relaxes a little.

He supposes he has time to figure it all out.

As it turns out, he was, perhaps, a little _too_ relaxed.

The next day goes even easier than the one before, though Cas probably finds too many excuses to use his phone, lingering over his new lock screen. Dean comes home and starts dinner and tells Cas about Benny’s new girlfriend visiting the garage and Benny being hilariously awkward, even once she’d left, and Cas proposes they invite her to the next game night so he, too, can observe the awkwardness. Dean grins at him, sly and gleeful, and Cas somehow gravitates toward the stove, pretending to be watching Dean’s technique.

Dean chatters on, either oblivious to or unconcerned by Cas’s staring.

Anyway, they’re halfway through their second episode of _Dr. Sexy_ ’s fourth season when Cas’s phone goes off. He’s seen this one more times than he really wanted to (he’s seen them all more times than he really wanted to), so he doesn’t think twice about checking the text.

_> > CASSIE. Look what I found!!!! where on earth did we even find someone with a polaroid camera?_

Attached is a picture of a polaroid from that first night in NYC, Cas stark in the flash of the camera, the fountain statue bleached white in front of him.

It’s a stupid picture, he thinks, dinner sitting funny in his stomach. It was a stupid night and a stupid trip, and he, himself, is an idiot for doing any of it.

“What’s up, Cas?” Dean asks, and before Cas has a chance to respond or hide away his phone, Dean leans over, curious.

“Dude. Are you — are you reenacting _Titanic_ with that public fountain?”

“I don’t know what else I’d do with it,” Cas mumbles.

“Uh, not climb in and press up behind it with your arms flung out? When was this, anyway? It better not have been winter, man. You could have lost some toes.”

Cas swallows. Part of him wants to lie, say it was from years ago. Bringing this up again, when they’re just finding their footing — it can’t possibly be a good thing.

But lying is how he ended up here in the first place, isn’t it?

“Uh. New York,” he makes himself say.

Beside him, Dean stills.

The silence stretches on.

Cas forces down the lump in his throat, and starts pulling up the delete button.

Fuck Balthazar.

Dean catches his wrist, shaking his head.

“Don’t. Forward it to me. It’s, uh, it’s cute.”

“I’m barely recognizable,” Cas manages, though he doesn’t press down, doesn’t tell it to erase.

Dean snorts.

“Nah, that’s definitely my dumbass standing in a fountain in the middle of winter. I should put it on the fridge.”

Cas tries to smile, but his stomach turns.

“I’ll send it to you, but — please don’t put it on the fridge.”

He doesn’t think he can handle the reminder.

“Yeah, alright.”

Dean shifts away and returns his attention to the TV, and after a moment, Cas forwards it.

Then he reopens the thread to Balthazar.

_If you have more, please don’t send them._

He puts his phone on silent when he’s done.

Cas is just starting to relax, the strangely compelling conclusion to an otherwise absurd episode having drawn him in, when Dean mutes the ending theme and speaks.

“Cas,” he starts, and Cas freezes, looking over.

He’s not stupid enough to think this isn’t about the picture, and he has no idea what to expect. Dean handled it well, but his humor was strained, and now that Dean’s had time to stew-

“I, uh. I’m sorry.”

Cas blinks.

“What?”

Dean scrubs a hand over his face, sighing.

“Last winter. The — the kit in the record box.”

Cas opens his mouth, then shuts it.

“You already apologized for that.”

Dean sighs.

“Barely. Anyway — I shouldn’t have yelled at you. Wasn’t my place.”

“No,” Cas agrees, uncertain. “It wasn’t. But — you did apologize. We both did things we shouldn’t have.”

“And we can apologize for them, too, when it comes up, but — for now. I really am sorry. I think — I get that that’s why you lied. About New York. I wouldn’t have wanted to tell me, after that, either.”

“I should have, though. At least we would have fought about it, and it would have been over with.”

Dean hesitates.

“What _did_ you do?”

Cas frowns, then shrugs.

“A few things. Weed, obviously. Bal had some pills. We all drank.”

Dean’s mouth tightens.

“Needles?”

Cas rolls his eyes.

“No. As I’ve said — many, _many_ times — I don’t do that anymore.”

“Okay. And the pills? What kind of pills?”

Cas shrugs again.

“Bal brought them. I don’t know.”

Dean stiffens.

“You don’t even _know_?”

“It’s _Bal._ He knows his shit, Dean, it didn’t matter.”

“I don’t care if it’s Oprah-fucking-Winfrey, Cas, somebody offers you drugs, you ask what the fuck they are before you _take_ them!”

“It was _fine_ -”

“It is not fucking _fine!_ You could have hurt yourself! You didn’t even know what you were _doing_!”

“I didn’t _need_ to. I told you, he knows what’s he’s doing. I trust him. I wasn’t in any danger.”

“Everyone fucks up sometimes, Cas, it’s why you don’t do this shit in the first place, because when it goes wrong—”

“Dean, it’s none of your _business_!” Cas interrupts, fists clenched. “And it’s _incredible_ to me that you actually thought you were apologizing, when all you’re doing is giving yourself an opening to interrogate me so you can decide what kind of punishment I deserve.”

“Fuck off, Cas, that’s not what it’s about and you _know_ it. I’m not here to punish you, I’m here to try and talk some sense into you, since you clearly don’t have any, if you’re taking random pills from a guy named _Balthazar—_ ”

Cas stands.

“I clearly don’t have any if I’m going to sit here and get a stupid lecture from some asshole named _Dean—"_

“Jesus, stop acting like a fucking child—”

“Stop _treating_ me like one, Dean! I can handle myself!”

Dean gets to his feet, stepping forward.

“ _You almost died_ !” he shouts, and the words ring off every wall in the room. Cas flinches. “So, _no,_ Cas, you fucking can’t!”

“That was one time,” Cas grits out, as calmly as he can. “I know how to be careful.”

“That’s great, buddy, but I’m not really interested in testing that.”

“Good, because it’s not up to you! And I _know_ what I’m doing.”

“You literally just told me you _didn’t,_ Cas! Seriously, do you even hear yourself? Actually — probably not! You sure as hell don’t listen to _me_! Because I fucking _told_ you, Cas — I’m not watching you do this again.”

“You didn’t even watch the _first_ time!” Cas snaps. “You _left_ me! You just washed your hands of me and called it good, and that’s fine, Dean, that’s your choice, but it’s the one you made. I was _terrified,_ when I woke up. And you didn’t show. I don’t care if you needed to ‘get over me’ or whatever bullshit you fed Pamela — you were my _best friend._ I nearly _died._ If there was a time to stow your fucking baggage, that was it. If it had been you — I couldn’t have stayed away. But you — you did fine. If my sister hadn’t made you come, you probably never would have. In fact, we probably wouldn’t even be _talking_ , now. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference whether I _had_ died.”

Dean recoils.

“How the hell can you even say that?”

“How can you pretend it’s not the fucking truth? You didn’t show. Thank you for calling all my other friends — I appreciated that — but I wanted _you_ and you didn’t show and you have never once given me a good reason why. You say you’re yelling at me because you care, Dean — but that’s hard to believe.”

And really, this is the worst part about these fights. Dean, pretending it’s for Cas’s own good. Dean, pretending this is a Big Deal, that it’s worth getting this angry over, when he had nothing to say at the time.

When Anna had to go appeal to his sense of pity to get him to come back to Cas at all.

“Is that why you’re with me?” he asks abruptly. “Is it because you don’t think I can take care of myself? You think if you leave, I’ll just — completely fall apart, that I’m so inept I can’t even keep myself _alive_ , and you’re enough of a hero to stick around and make sure I don’t?”

Dean looks outraged.

“Jesus, Cas, that’s obviously not—”

“You’re not in love with Katya, apparently. You weren’t even fucking anybody else. You were going to leave, the other day, just because you were ready to cut your losses. If that’s what this is about — then cut them. I’m not your responsibility, Dean, and I’m not that pathetic, either. I don’t know why you think you love me. I don’t know how I make you happy. And if neither thing is really true? Then I don’t _want_ you to stay with me. Not if you think so little of me.”

Dean’s expression goes flat.

Cas waits, heart pounding.

Dean shakes his head.

“I’m going out,” he mutters. “I’ll see you later.”

And then he stalks to the door, grabs his jacket and shoes, and walks out without even stopping to put them on.

Cas is an idiot.

He wasn’t lying — he _doesn’t_ want Dean here, if Dean just feels like he _has_ to be here — but the entire truth is that he wants Dean to _want_ to be here, and he also doesn’t want Dean out drinking or fucking some random because Cas doesn’t understand tact and _apparently_ , their session with Pamela fixed nothing.

Well — it was nice while it lasted, he supposes.

Anyway, he curls up in bed with his laptop, not sure if he should expect Dean back at all, and he’s genuinely surprised when he hears the door just before nine.

He waits, preparing himself for the worst; it _is_ still early, though, so perhaps it won’t be that bad. Unless Dean wants to fight some more. Past not being productive, Cas isn’t sure he has the energy.

He’s careful not to watch as Dean turns into the hall and approaches the bedroom, but the footsteps he hears sound steady. There’s a rap against the door jamb, and at last, Cas lets himself look up.

Dean looks back, clear-eyed, if a little pensive.

Cas swallows the urge to ask where he’s been.

“Hey,” Dean says. “Can I come in?”

Cas shrugs, shutting his laptop.

“It’s your room, too.”

Dean studies him for a long moment.

“I can never tell,” he says eventually. “Are you upset? Annoyed? Pissed? Does it bother you that I left or did you want the space? I have no idea what you’re thinking.”

Cas looks down.

“I think I told you what I was thinking earlier.”

Dean hesitates.

Then he steps forward, coming to a stop at the foot of the bed. After a moment, he sits.

Cas wishes Bal had kept his stupid pictures to himself. If he had, they would have sat together all evening, and now Dean would be putting on pajamas and crawling into bed and maybe they wouldn’t cuddle, but they’d lie close. Dean might even tell him things, like he has the last few days, things Cas doesn’t understand but make him feel hopeful, anyway.

He doesn’t feel particularly hopeful at all, right now.

“I did go see you,” Dean says, and for a moment, Cas is confused. “Put on the first pair of pants I found and drove straight there. They, uh. They wouldn’t let me in.”

“What?”

Dean props his elbows on thighs, staring at the rug.

“They said I couldn’t see you, since I wasn’t family.”

Cas blinks.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Dean’s brow creases. “It scared the shit out of me, that you did that. It still does.”

“But I’m—”

“Doesn’t matter. However you wanna finish that sentence, it doesn’t. I can’t help it, Cas. Every time you wander in with that glazed look in your eye, every time I think you’ve been out doing something — in my head, I’m getting a phone call, and they’re telling me I almost lost you.”

Cas swallows.

“I woke up, though. And you still didn’t come.”

Dean sighs, shoulders slumping.

“No. I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I waited. All night, all day — until they said you were awake.”

Cas stares, frustrated. He can barely _see_ Dean’s face; he can’t even begin to read his expression, right now.

He didn’t understand at the time, and even if he feels better, knowing Dean at least came, he still doesn’t understand.

“And then — what? You left, and just — forgot about it?”

Dean shakes his head.

“Of course not,” he says, a little hoarse. “You don’t forget that kind of thing, Cas.”

“Then where were you?”

“I told you. I don’t get you. I moved out, and you didn’t even ask me why. I stopped talking to you, and you didn’t even try to _call_ me. You just went to your parties and fucked around like I’d never even been there in the first place.”

“Because I didn’t know what else to do—”

“I know,” Dean interrupts, finally looking at him. “I know, Cas. You said it was hard, and I — I’m sorry I handled it like that. But I couldn’t tell. It just looked like you didn’t care. And after they said I wasn’t your family — I thought, if I tried to see you . . . you might not _want_ to see me.”

“But I _did—_ ”

“I didn’t _know,_ though. I never do. But especially then — it felt like my fault.” Dean huffs. “Even my dad knew it was my fault. One of the last things he ever said to me.”

Cas’s chest goes tight.

“But it wasn’t. I was stupid, and careless, and—”

“And you wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t left, right?” Dean interrupts, watching him. “You think that would have happened if I’d stuck around? If things just — went on, like they had been?”

No. But—

“That doesn’t make it your fault.”

Dean nods.

“As good as, Cas.”

“No. That’s not how life works.”

“It does for me. It’s why Aaron and I broke up, you know. I blamed myself and I blamed him for distracting me, for being in the way, for making me miss what was happening. I wouldn’t even touch him, after I got that call, Cas.”

“I don’t understand.”

Dean nods.

“I know you don’t. I know it’s hard to explain it to you. I know the ten months looked like me not caring, and if I could, I’d take them back. But Cas — we’d been together since we were ten. I think I expected you to be there till we were dead, too. And then you did that, and I realized — that’s not a guarantee. I can lose you, man, and I almost did.” He clears his throat. “I don’t think you’re inept, Cas. I don’t think you need me to take care of you, and I know you don’t want me to, either. Trust me, I got that, loud and clear. What I _think_ is that — I’ve got no way of holding on to you, but I have to at least try.”

For a long, long time, Cas doesn’t know what to say.

Which isn’t a new problem, for him; clearly, years of not knowing what to say and failing to say it have helped bring them to this point. But the time has come, it seems, to learn how to figure it out.

_It’s hard, to always be the one to reach out._

“Can you get in bed?”

Dean’s brows lift.

“Uh. What do you mean?”

Cas winces.

“I — I mean. Change for bed. And lie down with me. Please.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

Dean quickly strips out of his clothes and pulls on a t-shirt and sweats, and after a beat of hesitation, he climbs into bed.

He doesn’t scoot close, but Cas can still feel the warmth of him, sense his nearness, and he decides that was the right choice.

“I was upset, that you walked out,” he decides to start with, because as hopelessly transparent as Cas feels, sometimes, he apparently isn’t. “I thought you might be out drinking. Or even picking someone up.”

Dean shifts fully to face him, almost offended.

“What? No. No, I just — I went for a drive. Even if you told me to get out and never talk to you again, I might go to a bar, but I wouldn’t — it’d be a long time before I could even think about picking someone up.”

“Oh.”

“I was pissed, but not at you. I just — I thought, if I stayed, it’d make it worse. I wanted to cool down — figure out how to explain.”

Cas takes a deep breath.

“Please tell me that next time.”

Dean nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, that — that probably would help. Sorry.”

“When I say I was upset, I — sometimes even I have trouble understanding how I feel. I know I don’t express it, but that’s because I just — I don’t know how. But I was worried, and — sad, and afraid. Dean — this matters a lot, to me. More than anything.”

Dean nods.

“I know. Sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.” Cas pauses, studying him. “I didn’t — you never told me any of that. We never talked about my OD. You’d get angry about the drugs, but I didn’t understand why. What had happened — it didn’t seem to matter to you, at the time.”

“Trust me, it mattered, Cas.” Dean clears his throat, shifting — a little closer, Cas thinks. “I’m — I’m terrified of losing you. Even when Anna told me she’d tried to get you to go to Europe — shit. That was too far. I don’t know what I’d do.”

“Well, I’m not going to go to Europe.”

Dean smiles slightly, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I’ll quit,” Cas says, after a moment. He knows what has value and what doesn’t, and whatever principles he was trying to cling to, he thinks he also knows they don’t really matter here, not really. “I’ll probably still share a joint with Meg when I visit her, sometimes, but — everything else. I’ll quit.”

Dean goes still.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Cas hesitates. “But I’d like it if you did, too. That’s not an ultimatum, but — if you’re really afraid of losing me — then you should be able to understand that I’m afraid, too. I’m not asking you to teetotal, but — stick to beer. Like Bobby always said. Maybe a glass of whiskey, sometimes, but — not more than that.”

Dean hesitates.

“Not an ultimatum,” Cas repeats softly. “But — I — I love you. And I don’t want to lose you to something like that, whether you think it’s a risk or not. And if I’m understanding you — then you know how I feel.”

Slowly, Dean nods.

“Yeah. I do.” He looks at Cas for a long moment, then nods again. “Okay. Beer it is, then. And — pot with Meg is your shot of whiskey, right? Even if you go to New York again, and it’s a special occasion—”

“I won’t do anything. I promise.”

“Okay. Okay, Cas.” He licks his lips. “Uh. Deal, then.”

Cas blinks back, surprised. He’d asked, but he’d expected Dean to at least try and negotiate.

The relief that passes through him is unexpected and immense.

“Good. Thank you.”

Dean shrugs slightly, still watching Cas.

“Yeah. Thank you, too.”

Cas nods.

And then he wriggles a little closer, watching Dean’s expression for any sign of discouragement.

But it’s like Dean’s entire body relaxes, and he lifts his arm in invitation.

Cas settles against him.

It’s been days of difficult conversations, even if they’ve all turned out to be worthwhile, and Cas can feel the tiredness between them.

So for now, they lie in easy silence, simply holding on.


	14. the best in me wants to love you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: mild sexual content (tags in the chapter notes), implied semi-public sex, please let me know if I forgot something.
> 
> Chapter title taken from _Worst In Me_ \- Julia Michaels.
> 
> Thank you very much for sticking around to see these two dysfunctional idiots try and crawl out of their trainwreck. I truly appreciate all your feedback along the way, and I hope this feels like an appropriate resolution to things! ♡

Dean hasn’t left yet, when Cas wakes up. He’s looking down at Cas, smiling slightly.

“Morning, Sunshine.”

Cas shifts, startled to find himself half on top of Dean, one hand tucked up under his shirt.

“Uh. Good morning.”

Dean smiles wider, brushing Cas’s hair back.

“Sleep okay?”

“Very.” Cas clears his throat. “Is this — does this happen often?”

Dean licks his lips.

“Yeah. Except when you’re upset with me, I think.”

“Oh. Uh. Sorry.”

“I told you it was okay.”

“Still-”

“I should probably say ‘sorry,’ too,” Dean interrupts. “Once we started dating, I usually took advantage.”

“Took advantage?”

“Yeah. So I could cuddle with you in the mornings.”

Cas was disappointed, once, that he couldn’t remember snuggling Dean in the dead of the night.

He’s crushed to hear he missed _Dean_ snuggling with _him._

Dean raises his brows.

“What’s that look?”

“Disappointment,” Cas admits. “I missed it.”

“Huh.” Dean sniffs. “I didn’t think you’d appreciate being woken up. For a lot of reasons.”

Cas hesitates.

“I could just go back to sleep after you were gone.”

“You could. On the other hand, we’ve been going to bed together, lately. You might just be ready to wake up when I am.”

Cas nods slowly.

“I do like waking up with you.”

Dean grins.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And if there will be — cuddles, involved, then . . .”

Dean sighs, thumb brushing Cas’s temple, and then he wraps both arms around him.

“I have ten minutes before I need to get ready.”

Cas turns his face into Dean’s chest a little more.

“Sounds good,” he murmurs, and quietly listens to his heart beat, more comfortable than he’s been in a very long time.

It’s a pretty good day, for Dean.

He’s not only somehow managed to avoid another fuckup with Cas, but Cas agreed to quit the drugs. Which is just — there aren’t words for the relief Dean felt, when Cas said that. It’s not something Dean has ever been brave enough to ask — he generally figured the answer would be an unequivocal ‘no’ — and there’s no guarantee Cas won’t slip up — there’s no guarantee _Dean_ won’t slip up, even if right now, he thinks he’d be an idiot to — but it’s a huge deal, either way.

If Cas is even _trying_ to stay off all the bullshit he does — Dean’ll take it.

Anyway, the point is, Dean panicked and they ended up having a big fight and that should have been a net negative, and _yet—_

Cas is giving up drugs and Dean woke up and got to spend twenty minutes in bed snuggling with him, _while they were both conscious._

How the fuck is this his life? Less than a week ago, Dean thought he was going to have to give Cas up for good.

And instead he gets _more._

“Brother. You gonna do something with that wrench or just smile at it like you’re about to propose?”

Dean startles, flushing.

“Thinkin’ about the repair, sorry.”

“Uh-huh,” Benny drawls. “You have a good night or somethin’?”

Dean shrugs. He knows what Benny’s thinking; he’s thinking Dean got laid and he’s still languishing in the afterglow, because Dean is 100% That Guy when it comes to Cas, but that’s fine.

That’s probably less embarrassing than the truth.

“I did.” Dean rubs the back of his neck, shifting awkwardly. “Actually, Cas and I, uh, we talked about some stuff.”

Benny looks surprised, but gives Dean an encouraging smile.

“Yeah? Talking’s good.”

Which — Dean’s finally beginning to realize that’s true, _however_ -

“It is. And . . . we both agreed . . . it’d be great if Evie came to game night.”

Benny’s smile drops.

“ _Really_ , chief?”

Dean smirks.

“You let us know, okay?”

Benny rolls his eyes.

“Get back to work.”

Smiling, Dean does.

His good mood dims when he gets home and finds Cas acting weird.

And Dean knows he should probably ask, thinks he’s actually been handling this communication bullshit pretty well the last few days, even if it took a metaphorical fire under his ass to get him there — but if Cas is just working through some things, Dean doesn’t want to harass him about it, either.

Besides. Cas sticks close, watching Dean sing along to AC/DC while he tends to the chicken parmesan, and when Dean casually catches his eye, just to check in, Cas immediately smiles. It’s small, but there’s nothing insincere or tense about it, so Dean decides he probably just needs some time to think.

Which — Dean’s always been a little wary of people thinking about things that may involve him, or involve making decisions about him, but he’s an adult and he wants this to work, so he tells himself to settle down and finishes dinner.

Anyway — the puzzle works itself out about an hour later, when they’re sitting on the sofa and Dean is congratulating himself on initiating a sort-of-cuddle that Cas enthusiastically settles into.

Cas clears his throat, glancing at him.

“I was thinking, today,” he starts, and Dean tries not to tense up.

“Yeah?”

“It, um. it’s been a while. Since we . . .”

He trails off, awkwardly looking down.

“Since we what?” Dean asks, though he’s already trying to figure it out. They haven’t been to the aquarium in a while; hell, they haven’t been on a date in a while. Things have been too weird for that. They saw all their friends on Jo’s birthday, but they’re probably due for another game ni—

“Since we had sex.”

Dean chokes on air.

“O-oh. Yeah.” He nods, blinking rapidly. “Yeah, I thought — you know. Maybe it’d be better to wait. While we kind of — figured stuff out.”

For some reason, Cas looks relieved.

“Oh. That makes sense,” he says, more like he’s telling _himself_ than agreeing with Dean, which—

“You didn’t think it was because I didn’t want you, right?”

“Well, it would be okay if you didn’t,” Cas says quickly. “If you stop being interested in that — you, um. You’ve been — you’re giving me a lot, Dean, and I’d rather have those things than sex, as long as it’s not because you don’t . . .” he hesitates. “As long as it doesn’t mean you don’t want the rest of me, either.”

Dean doesn’t even know where to start.

“Okay. Okay, that’s — thank you. That means a lot, Cas.” After all, Cas can say he doesn’t care about sex, but Dean’s not sure he believes that, so it’s kind of a big deal for Cas to say he’d take Dean without it. _However—_ “But yeah, I want you. I pretty much always want you.”

Cas frowns.

“It’s fine if you don’t. I really don’t need it, Dean. And as we get older, it’s entirely likely our sex drives will change, so—”

“Cas.”

Cas falls silent, squinting at him a little uncertainly.

“Yes?”

“Someday, when we’re old and grey and yelling at neighborhood teenagers, you know what’s gonna happen?”

Uncertainty melts into surprise.

“What?”

“You’re gonna take me to the ER,” Dean declares, and Cas blinks.

“I’m what?” He sounds more confused than curious.

“You’re going to have to, because I’m going to want you just as bad as I do now, but my dick’ll refuse to cooperate. Except wanting you always makes me stupid, so I’m going to do something incredibly dumb in order to try and get it to, and the doctors are probably gonna lecture us about it for a full half an hour after they fix me.”

Cas stares, visibly stunned.

And then he snorts, and then he’s laughing, and it’s incredible, making Cas laugh, just like it always has been.

“I see. Alright — I look forward to it.” Cas’s grin turns shy, draws up into a small smile, and it’s been so long since Dean saw _that_ look, his heart pretty much does a cartwheel.

Cas is smokin’ hot, a sexy badass in every sense of either word, but - he’s also fucking _cute_ , if you’re lucky enough to see it, and Dean despises social media, but he thinks he’d get a twitter account and hashtag-blessed himself on the altar of oversharing if it meant he got to be that lucky from here on out.

“Do you think it would be okay?” Cas asks, shifting to face him a little more, and Dean knows what he means right away, and even if there wasn’t some part of him that was always kind of thinking about it, always noticing Cas, not quite able to help itself, Dean would be hard-pressed to say ‘no,’ right now.

“I don’t think it would be okay if we fucked,” he says. Cas’s face falls a little, but since Dean is apparently this kind of person, now, he makes himself keep going. “I think it’d be okay if, uh. If we made love, though.”

Cas tenses, blue eyes wide.

Dean stares back and tries not to look too embarrassed.

“That was very sappy,” Cas says slowly, not really blinking, and Dean nods, shrugging.

“Was supposed to be. That’s a thing we get to do now, right?”

Cas nods, and licks his lips.

“Right. But—” he starts, and then he turns away slightly, gaze averted. “If you make love to me, Dean - I’m not going to last very long."

Dean’s heart thuds unevenly, sort of like somebody just shoved it down a staircase.

“Good,” he says (or maybe he croaks it). “Me, either.”

They don’t. Dean does better than he expects, but it’s still not great, and Cas ends up coming in his boxers before dean has a chance to get them off him. He _tries_ to convince Dean to fuck him, anyway, but he’s barely made it to an exasperated secondary suggestion of slicking up his thighs for Dean to thrust into when Dean makes a mess all over the _outside_ of Cas’s boxers, too.

“Shit,” Dean mutters. “Does it still count as making love if I don’t undress you all the way?”

Cas is quiet for a moment.

“Do you love me?”

“’Course I love you,” Dean says, instinctive in a way he’s never been able to get it to be, and Cas’s brows lift. He inhales sharply, and Dean stiffens, surprised at himself.

But then Cas reaches up, hand strong and warm as it strokes down Dean’s back, soothing.

“Well. Since I, um, since I love you, too — then I think it always counts.”

He manages to get Cas all-the-way naked for round two, at least, but really, Cas is right.

From here on out — it always counts.

“That was very nice. Thank you.”

Dean makes a face, propping up on his elbow to look at Cas.

“’Very nice,’” he echoes. “Okay. Not a ringing endorsement.”

Cas looks distressed.

“It was meant to be.”

Dean studies him.

“Really?”

Cas nods.

“I was trying to, um, ‘affirm’ that you — you’re a phenomenal lover.”

Dean lifts his brows.

“Phenomenal,” he repeats, feeling the word out. “I like that a lot better than ‘very nice.’”

Cas rolls his eyes, though the distress has faded.

“Noted.”

Dean settles back down, tucking his head against Cas’s shoulder.

“So . . . not fishing, or anything—” he totally is, and honestly, he doesn’t care if Cas lies through his teeth, so long as Cas thinks it’s worth it to lie— “But does that make me one of your better lovers?”

Cas tenses.

“I’m not even looking for top-three, here,” Dean jokes, idly thumbing a nipple. “I’ll take top-twenty.”

He’s kind of hoping for top-five, although if there’s few enough people ahead of him, he’s not sure he’ll be able to resist torturing himself by asking _why._

Cas is silent for such a long moment, Dean starts to wonder if this was, in fact, a terrible idea.

“I had my suspicions,” Cas finally says, quiet. “But — sex with you is different.”

Dean hesitates.

“Different good or different bad?”

“Good,” Cas answers, and he sounds impatient. “But it’s incredibly different. I can’t — I don’t think I could objectively evaluate you if I tried.”

“What does that mean?”

“For the most part — I’ve never really cared who touched me. As long as I could respect them as a person, as long as their technical skill was adequate — sex just felt good. But I wouldn’t say any of them, in particular, felt especially good to have sex with.” Cas pauses. “Having you touch me, though — knowing you’re the one touching me, seeing you look at me, feeling you — it’s just — you can’t really compare the two. They’re — wholly different experiences. Something happens when you touch me that — there’s a part of me that responds to that, that’s just — it’s like it wasn’t even there, when I was with other people.”

Dean thinks he gets that. He’s always been more selective than Cas, and he’s had feelings for a number of people that he’s slept with, and it certainly made a difference—

But no. It was never like this, not even close.

“I love it,” Cas continues softly. “I love having sex with you. I used to think of sex as another kind of drug, another way of disappearing for a while, of going somewhere better — but with you, I feel — almost unbearably present. My body — my body’s supposed to be a tool. I enjoy it, other people enjoy it. But then — when we do this — it doesn’t feel like something I’m doing with my body, or something you’re doing with it. It feels like — me. I feel — inseparable, from all the parts of myself. And from you.”

Dean can’t help himself.

He likes that concept, instinctively. Of making Cas feel whole. Of making Cas feel like a part of Dean, too.

“I hated it, when you asked for the open relationship. I’ve never liked the idea of jealousy. I think it’s petty. But I was — _so_ jealous, when I thought someone else was getting that from you.”

“They weren’t. Even if I had been screwing around — I wouldn’t be giving them that.”

Cas shrugs.

“Maybe not to just anyone. But Katya—”

Dean rolls off of Cas, sitting up and looking at him.

“Katya nothing. I thought we talked about this in therapy.”

“Now, we have. But before, I thought — maybe you even gave her more. Maybe she understood you better. Maybe she could give _you_ more than I could, and that — I didn’t know what to do.”

“No. No, just — no. She couldn’t. You — you were really that jealous of her?”

Cas nods.

“Yes. I can’t — I don’t think I can express to you, how much it hurt, that you went to her last weekend.”

“No one else would take me, since they’re all friends with you.”

“But I didn’t know about any of that. I thought you were falling in love with her and you — you went over there to spend the weekend fucking her, because you were tired of me.”

Dean feels sick.

“I went over there to figure out how to man up and let you go, since I thought I was making you miserable.” Dean covers his face with his hand. “I’d been thinking about it all week, about the last time I saw Dad, him telling me I was bad for you, like he was bad for everyone he loved. About how I maybe even should have gone with him like he asked when we were younger, that you would have been better off—”

The mattress shifts, and Dean drops his hand to find Cas upright, eyes wide.

“He what?”

“What?”

Cas stares.

“He asked you to go with him?”

Dean shrugs.

“Yeah. My sixteenth birthday. Remember? I made you wait out in the cold.”

Cas looks almost panicked.

“I thought he was lying,” he whispers. “I thought he was just taunting me.”

“What?”

Cas swallows, eyes searching.

“Why didn’t you go? You’d been waiting for that.”

Dean lifts his shoulders.

“A lot of reasons. I was pretty happy where I was at.”

“You always did what your father asked.”

“Yeah. And I would have, if he’d insisted, but — honestly? He said we’d take Sam, too, but — I knew that even if he agreed to it, you wouldn’t come with me. And I couldn’t leave you. I didn’t want to.”

Cas’s expression crumples.

“I didn’t know.”

“Well, I’m not sure it really changes anything,” Dean points out, puzzled by his reaction, but Cas shakes his head.

“You don’t understand. He suggested it, earlier, when you went to get pie. To upset me, I thought, and it did, because I was — I was so sure, Dean, that if he asked you, you’d go. We were still so young, I still — I would have said I was still naive, that I trusted that you loved me, that you’d take care of me, but — I was sure you’d leave with him, anyway.”

“Okay,” Dean says slowly. “That was a long time ago, though.”

“I wish I’d known.”

“It’s not a big deal, Ca—”

“It is to _me,_ ” Cas insists, hoarse. Dean wouldn’t be surprised if he started crying. “That was your _father,_ Dean. You’d been waiting years for that. I took it as a given. And now you’re saying you wanted to stay, for — for _me_.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And I didn’t have as much faith in you as I should have. As I wanted to have. But if I’d known that — I don’t think I would have given up on you so easily, later. I don’t think I _could_ have.”

Dean hesitates, and then he reaches out, taking Cas’s hand.

“A lot of things went wrong for us, Cas. A lot of things didn’t get said that should have. But we’re here now, and — now you know. I’d never leave without you.”

Cas clutches his hand tightly, nodding.

“Alright.”

“And — hopefully you also know that I’m not even remotely interested in Katya, but — I don’t have to be friends with her, if it bothers you that much.”

Cas withdraws a little, confused.

“But you’re becoming close.”

“Yeah.” And it will suck, if that’s what Cas wants, because Katya’s been a good friend and she’s probably the only person he knows who likes Dr. Sexy as much as he does, but still. “And if that’s going to make you unhappy — then maybe we shouldn’t be.”

Cas shakes his head.

“I wouldn’t ask you do that.”

“Well, no. That’s why I’m offering.”

Cas is quiet for a moment, staring at their joined hands.

“I don’t want you to do that,” he finally says. “I don’t want you to give things up for me. I really don’t. I just — I just want to know that you wouldn’t give me up, either.”

Dean’s touched and relieved and a little bit devastated, all at once.

“Never, if I can help it.”

Cas nods.

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “To answer your original question — you are the best lover I’ve ever had, without contest. And I literally cannot fathom wanting to touch someone else ever again.”

Dean huffs a laugh, though he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like hearing that more than he probably should.

“God. We’re a mess.”

Cas nods.

“We are.”

“But for the record — you shouldn’t have been jealous of Katya.” Dean tugs his hand free, gently pushing Cas back and crawling over him, holding his gaze. “You should never be jealous of anyone.”

Cas swallows.

“Mostly, I found it wasn’t something I could really control.”

“Maybe not.” Dean rests his hands against Cas’s stomach, and then slowly starts drawing them up, smoothing them across his chest. Cas sucks in a breath, and Dean curls forward, kissing him. “But — there is — _nothing —_ in the world — like this.” He pulls back slightly. “I mean it, Cas. It’s never been like this with anybody else, no matter how many feelings I thought I had.”

Cas blinks up at him, and the hope in his eyes makes Dean ache.

“Tell me, if you think that’s changing. If there’s ever something more you want. I’ll try. I just have to know.”

“Sure. But I don’t think it’s gonna happen.” Dean kisses him again, soft, threading his fingers through Cas’s hair and fitting his other palm to the curve of his cheek. “Do you want to go to sleep, or do you think I can make love to you again?”

Cas shivers, and then his hands come up, finding Dean’s shoulders.

“If I can make love to you,” he whispers.

“Wouldn’t want it any other way,” Dean murmurs, and so—

They do.

Like most good things, the weekend ends. Cas wakes up for his morning cuddle — because apparently, he is now eligible for morning cuddles from Dean, and he’s not to a place yet where he can take that for granted — and they have a quick breakfast together, Dean’s foot slotted up against Cas’s beneath the table, and when it comes time for Dean to put on his jacket and leave . . .

Cas feels strange about it.

It _does_ feel a little like something’s ending, and this morning Dean leaving for work feels more like Dean _going away._ Cas hovers by the door, feeling like there’s something that should be happening, something more than Dean pausing to look at him, a smile on his face, before telling him to have a good day.

Something more than Cas smiling back and wishing him the same; more than Dean pausing for another long moment, then sort of nodding and finally heading out the door.

He’s not sure what that something should have been, but when the door shuts and he’s alone in the apartment, he feels unmistakably _bad_ that it didn’t.

The feeling lingers. Getting out for his run helps, but once he’s been back inside for an hour, he finds himself dwelling on it, a restless, unhappy feeling as he tries to determine what was so wrong with it.

They concluded a very pleasant weekend by sharing a very nice morning together, and when it came time, they parted on good terms.

That — one would consider that a success of sorts, wouldn’t they?

He can’t. He’s plagued by a small sense of loss, of being denied something, of failing to do something he should have, even. He wants to wallow in the almost surreal good feelings from the weekend, from the things they said and did, things Cas hadn’t expected even when they left Pamela’s office last Monday, things that are so wonderful they inevitably cross the line into overwhelming — but he can’t.

Disgruntled, he forces himself to do a little work, and when he remembers that Dean has another appointment tonight and will be home late, he calls Pamela’s office and schedules one for himself. He’s not naive enough to think that any of what he has now would have been achievable without her help, nor is he about to risk it falling apart because he wasn’t willing to put in the effort.

Besides; this, what’s happening now, what almost seems like could be a — a new _normal,_ for them — he can’t help but feel like it’s proof that Pamela, at least, knows her business.

That he can trust her, and if he does, he gets to have at least some of the things he wants.

(Trust bonds, Cas is learning, are very important.)

It’s not until he’s squinting at a recipe on his phone and hoping Dean didn’t have _specific_ plans for the shredded rotisserie chicken he left in the freezer that Cas figures it out.

They didn’t touch.

He sets his phone down, staring blankly at the counter.

They spent the weekend touching; arguably, that should be sufficient to carry them through the week, and possibly, it doesn’t even need to be. Last week had considerably more touches than usual — though Cas is still miserably uncertain and he can recognize that often, Dean is, too — and he’s cautiously optimistic that this week will carry more of the same.

Of course, that sort of thing is bound to level off, the further away they get from their revelations and resolutions, but — it shouldn’t go away entirely, right?

(He hopes not.)

Anyway — regardless of what _should_ be, Cas is left with what _is,_ and for whatever reason — he wanted to touch Dean when they said goodbye and he didn’t get to. A part of him even feels a little like he _needed_ to.

Should he have?

He struggles over dinner — overthinking a problem is not, in fact, conducive to learning something new simultaneously — and though his instinct is to dismiss it, he finds himself wondering what Dean would think about it.

Dean, who looked at him and paused before he went out the door.

Cas wonders if he’s imagining it, that that pause now seems significant.

_I would like to give you affection all the time. And I’d like you to give it to me._

For some reason, Cas thinks of the goodbye hugs. The hugs he’s desperately missed, ever since they stopped — the hugs Dean said were important to him, too.

Dean mentioned hugs, last Monday. Didn't he? Hugs, before and after work, if Cas recalls. They have yet to happen, but — he said he wanted them. Cas is sure of it.

And by the time dinner is complete, a fine, crisp layer of brown adhering the bottom to the pan, he’s come to a decision.

Dean texts before he starts heading back home, and Cas quickly begins to regret said decision.

Welcoming people home with a hug is a thing people do, isn’t it? At least some sort of — partial embrace, or a kiss on the cheek. Is that only for new couples and the overly-sentimental? He and Dean are a new couple, technically. Cas almost considers last week a reset. And actually, Charlie always hugs him when she sees him, and since he and Dean are also friends, it could just be a — a friendly hug. Unrelated to their relationship.

Though — would Charlie hug him every day if he lived with her?

He thinks about texting her to ask, but decides against it.

Dean said ‘all the time.’ If he didn’t mean _all_ the time, he can say that, too, and if he didn't want a hug after work, then he shouldn't have recklessly mentioned it in the first place.

Though he hasn’t been giving Cas hugs, either.

Unless the sofa cuddles and the other cuddles count, in which case — it’s _Cas’s_ turn to try something.

He hovers by the door, stomach in knots.

He can do this. Surely, he can do this. There cannot possibly be that many consequences to it, nor can they be that severe, and he _wants_ it, so — there is no earthly reason not to try.

And yet, when Dean unlocks the door and pushes it open, glancing up at Cas with a surprised smile, he finds himself paralyzed.

How is this so _difficult_? How did _D_ _ean_ manage to do this, every single day for all those years? Cas, as oblivious as he was to his own insecurities, still never managed to hug Dean f—

Cas starts, brain short-circuiting.

He never hugged Dean first.

In fact, he’s not sure he’s ever hugged Dean first in their entire lives.

Which, really — that settles it. Cas clenches his fists, watching Dean unlace his boots, and steels himself.

Dean is not going to yell at him or move out or whatever insane thing Cas must be stupidly imagining, somewhere in the dark depths of his fucked up brain.

And he deserves a goddamn hug.

Cas marches over, waiting while Dean straightens, and when Dean raises his eyebrows, curious—

Cas steps forward and firmly wraps his arms around him.

“ _Shit_ ,” Dean whispers, and for a moment, Cas thinks that’s discouragement, starts to pull back, but Dean seizes him and hauls him as close as he can. “No — stay put. What, uh, what’s this for?’

“I wanted to hold you.”

“Oh. Like . . . just — just because?”

“Yes.”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“Jesus, Cas.”

He squeezes him again, kissing Cas’s hair, and Cas flinches, feeling terrified and vaguely melty and how on earth does _anyone_ in the world do this? It’s so _much_. It’s overwhelming.

“I’m sorry I never hugged you when — when were kids,” he makes himself add, because Dean deserves an apology, and if a part of Cas is apologizing for not being normal, at any point in his life, then that’s probably fair, too.

“What?” Dean sounds surprised. “You hugged me all the time.”

“No. You hugged me and I hugged back. That’s different.”

Dean’s quiet for a moment.

“It is,” he acknowledges quietly. “So . . . this is actually an apology hug?”

Cas scowls into his shoulder.

“ _No_. This is a hug, during which an apology is being given. I told you. I wanted to hold you.” He hesitates. “I was — it took me the entire day to figure out, but I was upset that you left this morning and I didn’t get to.”

Dean makes a strange noise.

“Really?”

“It felt wrong.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it did. I thought so, too.” Dean sounds relieved. “Well — you can hold me anytime you want, Cas. I’d, uh. I’d really like if you did.” He clears his throat. “And thank you for the apology, but actually — I think there’s a thing called ‘recompense’, and people usually like it better than words.”

Cas closes his eyes, throat tight. His chest feels almost like he’s drowning, lungs struggling for air, heart foundering amid the chaos.

“You’re absurd.”

“Kind of.”

Cas can hear the smile in his voice, and though Dean’s mouth is nowhere near his skin, he swears some part of him can _feel_ it.

“And shameless.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“I am very in love with you,” Cas continues, because he can’t help himself, and perhaps that is, finally, okay. Dean stills in his arms. “Sometimes I wish I loved you less. I don’t think I was made to love someone this much.”

“Cas . . .”

Cas sniffs, turning into Dean a little more.

“Do you know what I mean, Dean, when I say I love you?”

“Uh. I think s—”

“No. You don’t,” he interrupts, impatient and maybe even a little hysterical. “If — if I met you for the first time today, I think I’d panic.”

“What?” Dean starts to pull away, but Cas holds him tighter. He thinks if he has to look at Dean, now, look him in the eye, every atom in his body might just pull apart and scatter.

As it is, he’s not sure Dean won’t destroy him, someday.

“Why?” Dean asks, finally settling.

“Because. I would have thought I wasn’t capable of it. Of the things you make me feel. And then you’d be there, and I’d find out I never really knew myself at all. I - I’m glad I grew up with you, Dean. I don’t think I could have handled feeling this way if I hadn’t had so long to get used to it.”

Dean sucks in a breath.

“What way is that?”

“It’s overwhelming. Pamela said it wasn’t wrong, but I don’t think she understood. You say you didn’t want to do anything without me, but Dean — I want to be a part of you. A part of you you can never get rid of. I — a part of _me_ thinks I’d be content to just sit and watch over you for my entire life. The years would pass and I wouldn’t do anything and I wouldn’t care, because that would be enough.”

“Christ,” Dean whispers, and after a pause, adds, “We are both really, really fucked up, Cas.”

“Yes. Me more so than you, I think, but — yes.”

Dean’s quiet a moment.

“When we were little, I really liked that you stared at me all the time. Made me feel important.”

“You were. You are. To me, at least.”

“That’s what it felt like. And . . . I liked that it meant I could get away with staring back.”

Cas swallows, though it doesn't keep his throat from sticking.

“I — Dean, I’m feeling a lot.”

“That’s okay, sweetheart,” Dean says, and it’s like he doesn’t understand how much worse that thoughtless term of endearment can make things. “It’s not gonna kill you. Pam says we just gotta feel our feelings, right?”

Cas nods.

“Yes, but — I hadn’t planned on feeling my feelings. I just wanted to hold you.”

Dean hums.

“Okay. You’re doin’ that. Longest hug we’ve had in over a decade, actually. Good job, buddy.”

“Right. But — I want more. Does the hug still count?”

Cas thinks he can feel Dean smile against his hair, but then Dean’s firmly pulling back, awkwardly ducking to kiss him.

He swears he feels sparks bounce through him at the touch.

It’s not enough.

Dean’s cheeks are flushed, his eyes shining. He looks delighted, in a way that couldn’t possibly be from work, that Cas doesn’t think is from the suggestion of sex, that might, somehow, be from things Cas just told him.

“Remember, Cas? It always counts, now.”

Dean kisses him again.

And then he frowns, sniffing.

“Uh. Did something burn?”

Cas glances away.

“No. It just — anyway. It’s fine.” He clears his throat. “I made dinner, by the way.”

Dean just sort of grins at him for a moment. Objectively, Cas thinks it might be considered a stupid grin, but at the moment, it’s mostly just making his knees feel structurally unsound.

“Yeah? Did you want to eat first, then, or—”

“ _Dean._ ”

Laughing, Dean reaches for his hand and starts tugging him down the hall.

They eat dinner in bed, which is fortunate, because it means Cas can insist on being the one to get up and get it, which _means_ he can very carefully scrape off the top to put on Dean’s plate.

Of course, the first thing Dean does is lean over and prod Cas’s with his fork until the browning is revealed.

“It was just some of it—” Cas starts, distressed by Dean’s immediate snort of laughter, but then Dean sets his plate down and kisses him, hands warm against Cas’s face, and Cas is too flustered to explain further.

They eat in silence for a moment, Dean glancing at him occasionally, clearly still amused.

Cas pointedly avoids looking back.

“I, uh. I had my appointment, tonight,” Dean says after a little while, and Cas pauses.

“How did it go?”

Dean shrugs.

“We talked about — you know. What the last week has been like. What ways I — you know. Was trying. About the ways I think - you’ve been trying? She said — it sounded like we were doing good. Both of us.” Dean’s ears are red, gaze fixed on his plate, but — he looks a little proud.

Cas aches.

Suddenly, he’s not sure he can stomach the rest of dinner.

“I have to use the bathroom,” he mumbles, setting it down and slipping out of bed. His skin feels wrong on his body, now, even though it felt incredibly right less than half an hour ago.

He doesn’t understand.

He’s not sure how much time passes before there’s a knock on the door, and he looks up from his perch on the lid of the toilet, embarrassed.

“You still alive in there?” Dean calls, and Cas nods, then remembers himself.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” There’s a long pause. “Do you wanna tell me why you’re hiding?”

_No._

“It’s okay if you don’t,” Dean continues, although Cas isn’t sure he believes him. Dean said this sort of thing bothered him.

Cas, too, is bothered by his own behavior.

It takes him too long to answer.

“Can I come in?” Dean asks, and even though Cas’s first instinct is to protest, he makes himself straighten out, standing.

“No. I’ll come out.”

Dean’s waiting when he opens the door. He smiles at Cas, but it doesn’t meet his eyes, and Cas feels something in himself wither.

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be difficult.”

“You’re not,” Dean says quickly. “I was just . . . worried.”

Cas nods.

“I know. I’m sorry,” he repeats, and Dean shakes his head.

“It’s fine. Just — do you mind . . .”

Cas hesitates.

Then he reaches back and shuts the bathroom door, leaning against it.

“It — it’s hard,” he mutters. “I didn’t used to try. And when you don’t try, it — things just happen, and you accept them.”

Dean starts to step forward, then stops, withdrawing again.

He nods.

“Okay.”

Cas shrugs, looking down.

“But now — I’m trying. And it _is_ going well — better than I thought it could. But that could change. And if I lose, when I’m trying so hard . . . it’s not — it doesn’t just _happen_. It’s my fault, entirely.” He swallows against the lump in his throat. “It’s terrifying, Dean.”

Dean doesn’t answer, for a moment, though Cas isn’t sure what he can really say to any of that. Cas is, after all, being insane.

“It is. Trust me, I know exactly what you’re talking about. But . . . you _are_ trying, Cas. And that makes it a lot less terrifying, for me.” Dean shuffles a little closer, watching him carefully. “Since we met - every single time I wasn’t enough, Cas — you stepped in. And I made it through. And I know — I don’t expect it to be the same for you, but — I _am_ trying. So if we fuck it up, it’s not just your fault, okay? And — we’ll keep trying. We _already_ fucked it up. More than once. But — you _did_ try. You held on, at least enough, and so did I, and — and if it happens again, it doesn’t matter. We’ll try some more, and we'll work things out. Just like we always have.”

Cas wants to believe that. He really, really does. And whether he does or not, it won’t change the fact that he’s going to keep trying, but—

“You can’t promise that.”

Dean nods.

“No. I can’t. Neither can you, though. You can’t promise me the next time we fuck it up, you won’t walk.”

“I won’t—”

“You don’t know that. Not now.”

Cas frowns at him.

“But it doesn’t matter,” Dean continues, eyes serious. “Right now, I’m here, I’m trying, and so are you. And I feel good about that. I _want_ to feel good about that. I’m sick of second-guessing everything and feeling like shit when I think it’s going wrong.”

Cas just looks at him.

“How do you stop?”

Dean shrugs.

“You don’t. At least, not all at once. But if things are good, you just — go with it. And it’s okay, if you can’t yet. This is — neither of us know what the hell we’re doing here, and it’s a big deal. It scares me, too. But — we just have to try. Keep doing what we’re doing.” Dean gestures between them. “Even this — we just keep at it. And maybe, eventually, we stop freaking out.”

After a moment, Cas slowly nods his head.

“I’m going to start seeing Pamela again.”

Dean blinks.

“Uh. I didn’t know you stopped.”

“I did. She said some things that were hard to hear, and I left. I didn’t see the point, at the time.”

“Oh.” Dean sticks his hands in his pockets. “I get that. She says a lot of stuff that’s hard to hear.”

“That probably means we need to hear it.”

Dean huffs a laugh.

“Yeah. This — a lot of this, she and I talked about tonight.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I told you — you’re not the only one, Cas.”

Cas nods again, then takes a deep breath, pushing away from the door.

“Sorry I hid in the bathroom.”

Dean shrugs.

“You came out.”

“Of course. I didn’t want you to worry about it.”

Dean smiles slightly, studying him.

“I appreciate it.” He offers his hand. “I’m getting cold, though. Come back to bed with me?”

Cas looks down, stares at Dean’s outstretched hand.

Something in him calms, and he takes it.

“Of course.”

Dean kisses him goodbye, in the morning. Cas decides that is, indeed, what was missing, and Tuesday goes much better.

When Dean gets home, Cas hugs him.

It’s still harder than he wants it to be — he still doubts, wonders if it’s reasonable, if two adults really need a hug, every single day, for no reason — but Dean relaxes into it like there’s nowhere else he wants to be, and Cas decides that reason can stay out of it.

He resolves to hug him every day after that.

Aside from the utterly terrifying twenty minutes Cas spent hiding in the bathroom, it’s a good week. Dean gets that sense of fragility, sometimes, a thing he never consciously thought about, the first time they started dating, but he also gets other things, things he just assumed wouldn’t be part of a relationship with Cas, before.

He starts kissing Cas goodbye, in the mornings, and he swears Cas looks happy about it; even better, Cas hugs him when he gets home, and if Dean thought he kind of lived for the goodbye hugs he got when they were kids, having Cas’s arms wrapped around him for coming _back_ to him instead of leaving is basically a fucking miracle. It’s like getting told, every single day, that things are good and Cas is glad he’s there again, and maybe that’s a shameless extrapolation, but it’s one he’s decided to go ahead and believe, because even if he tries, he can’t really find a good reason not to.

Cas stares at him all the fucking time, just like he used to, and Dean loves that, too.

Still — it’s a surprise when Sunday comes and Dean reluctantly gets dressed so he can take Baby to the empty shop for a little TLC, and Cas asks if he can come, too.

It doesn’t occur to Dean to say ‘no,’ and by six o’ clock, Dean’s singing along to the radio and working on the interior, Baby’s outside sparkling and Cas sitting criss cross on the garage floor a few feet away.

Dean’s pretty sure he catches him staring at his ass, a few times.

“Having fun?” he asks after a while, briefly glancing back before he starts cleaning the backseat. Cas’s eyes flick up, vaguely guilty, and Dean suppresses a smile.

“I am.”

“Uh-huh.” Dean pauses. “You used to bring a book.”

Dean’s got a lot of fond memories of that, Cas just sitting in the driveway with him, classic rock playing on the radio while Dean got Baby shining, inside and out, Cas quietly reading close by.

“I did.” Nothing follows for a moment, and Dean figures Cas is content to silently ogle, for now. “I didn’t usually read it.”

Dean keeps working the rag across the leather for a moment, and then he freezes.

“What?”

“The book was mostly for show. You were very tolerant, when it came to the staring, but I did try not to abuse the privilege.”

“Uh. I don’t follow,” Dean lies, because he’s pretty sure he does, is pretty sure Cas is saying he just sat out in the driveway and _watched_ Dean, all those times, even though he had a perfectly good book in his hands.

(Not that Dean was ever jealous of the books.)

Cas is quiet for a moment, and Dean doesn’t dare turn around, afraid Cas will see just how eager is to hear this story, to have his hopes confirmed.

“I liked watching you taking care of things,” Cas says, after a moment. “You’re very methodical. Watching you work is . . . well, beautiful. But it’s also — I can tell you love your car.”

“Damn straight,” Dean agrees, though it comes out a little breathless.

Hopefully Cas doesn’t notice.

“I could tell you loved all the things in the treehouse, too,” he continues. “When you call Sam, even — I know I should give you privacy, but sometimes I just want to watch you. I like how you look when you talk to him, when you ask him too many questions about what he’s doing and how he is.” Cas clears his throat. “When I was young, sometimes I thought I could tell you loved me. I — I love that about you. How you love things. That you choose to love those things in the first place.”

By the time he’s finished, Dean has set down the rag, perfectly still where he leans over the bench.

It’s not what he was hoping for, or even remotely what he was expecting.

Slowly, he draws himself out of the car, straightening.

“Sorry,” Cas says awkwardly, sounding unsure.

Dean shakes his head, not quite sure what to say.

“You’re fine,” he manages, and then he heads for the shop sink, thoroughly scrubbing down his hands.

When he turns back around, reaching for the towel, Cas looks uneasy.

“I didn’t think you were finished,” he says, and Dean shakes his head.

“Another time,” he assures him, tossing the towel aside and heading back toward Baby. He stops in front of her, just looking at Cas for a moment.

Cas looks back at him, blue eyes searching.

“I did love you,” Dean finally says, because that’s the most important thing, he decides. Cas’s lips part. “I wish I’d known how much I loved you.” He smiles. “Come here, Cas.”

Cas scrambles to his feet, something almost nervous in his gaze as he hastens over, but when Dean opens his arms, it disappears.

Dean kisses him, and Cas kisses back without hesitation, warm and solid and possibly/probably in love with Dean, just the way some part of Dean always wanted him to be.

So Dean kisses him harder, kisses him until he's breathless, until his lips are red and they're both hard in their jeans, and then he has Cas lean over Baby’s front, palms braced against the hood while Dean slowly opens him up and fucks him, the slick, filthy sounds of it echoing throughout the empty garage and Cas’s moans drowning out the voices on the radio.

Cas leaves two messy handprints behind, stark against the just polished black paint, and Dean feels like Cas might as well have left them on his soul.

And yeah, maybe it’s tacky, and maybe it's even a little obscene — but he doesn’t wash Baby for a week.

“Dean’s glowing.”

Cas quickly looks over at him, searching, although he knows Charlie doesn’t mean literally.

“Do you think so?”

“Um, I _know_ so. I haven’t seen him this happy in _years._ Not even when you first got together.”

Cas hesitates.

“What about, um. What about when he was with other people?’

Charlie snorts.

“Please. Even when you guys were _fake-_ dating, he was still happier than he was with other people.”

Cas’s stomach flips, though not unpleasantly.

“You’re not just saying that?” he clarifies, struggling to believe it. All he remembers was waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting to fuck it up and have Dean walk out for good.

She looks incredulous.

“No? Why would I?”

Cas shrugs.

“I don’t know. To make me feel good?”

She makes a face.

“Is it that hard to believe you make him happy?”

Cas shrugs.

“Yes.”

Charlie sighs.

“Well, I might not be in love with you, but you make _me_ happy. For what it’s worth.”

Cas frowns.

“How?”

She rolls her eyes.

“If you could totally put it into words, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. _But_ — you always thought-experiment with me. You let me call you late at night to bounce ideas off you about Moondoor, and you always make a note of cool mythical stuff you read about in case I can use it. And you watch dumb shows for me so I can rant to you about them and you’ll know what I’m talking about. You bake things for me—”

“And you finish bar fights I start,” Jo interjects, leaning over the back of the sofa with a grin. “You took a road trip with me to Vegas that one time when I had that fight with Mom. Dean was pissed as hell I took off with you, but you stayed the whole week, anyway, even though you hate it when he’s mad at you.”

Cas remembers that, remembers having to hold the phone away from his ear, Dean was shouting so loudly, but Jo refused to go home and Cas didn’t think it was a good time for her to be alone.

He had to get incredibly high and turn his phone off, so he wouldn’t be anxious over it and he could still be appropriately fun — but he did stay.

“I’m also pretty sure you super-glued everything in Cecily Jones’ locker to everything _else_ in her locker — including the locker itself — after she cut off my braid in art.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Cas says automatically.

Dean had been curious, when Cas suddenly wanted to know how to pick a lock, but he showed him how, anyway.

And then he’d smiled at him, bright and almost _proud,_ when the teacher asked whoever had done it to step forward.

Of course, it was somewhat awkward when Cecily later went out to find her bicycle utterly dismantled, Dean hastily shuffling past her shrill ranting, but even now, Cas isn’t sure property damage is worse than the personal violation of hair-cutting.

Dean left all the pieces, anyway; it’s not like it couldn’t be reassembled.

“Right.” Charlie and Jo exchange smirks, and then Jo gives his shoulder a squeeze.

“ _A_ _nyway_. He’s really happy when he’s with you, Cas. And he has good reason to be. Remember that.”

Cas swallows.

“I’m really happy with him. I’m really happy with you,” he adds, looking at them. “Thank you — thank you for always being here.”

Jo beams, and then she leans down and licks the side of his face.

“You, too, babe,” she says gleefully, and Charlie rolls her eyes while Cas halfheartedly wipes his cheek.

“I get Dean, but what’s your excuse for being allergic to feelings?” Charlie complains, eyeing Cas’s cheek with distaste.

Jo shrugs.

“Toxic masculinity doesn’t just get to boys? Hell if I know. Who wants another beer?”

Cas smiles.

“Please.”

She grins back.

“Help yourself, they’re in the kitchen,” she says, and pushes off from the sofa and saunters away.

“This is stupid,” Cas says a couple weeks later, scowling at the offensively green guacamole in the bowl.

Charlie side-eyes him.

“A) it’s not stupid, and b) it was your idea.”

“Yes, and I’m stupid, particularly where Dean is concerned, so perhaps—”

“ _P_ _erhaps_ you should get your cute butt getting the nachos ready, dude, ‘cause Dean’ll be home in like, ten minutes.”

Cas shifts his glare to the chip bag, resentful.

“They’re offensive. They haven’t aged well.”

Charlie follows hi gaze to the chips, confused for a moment, but then she nods.

“Totes. But c’mon. We’re entitled to our childhood faves.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t encourage him.”

“Cas.”

“He might be angry. If he’s tired, and he finds his apartment full of people—” Cas shakes his head. “Never mind. You should all go home. I apologize for inc—”

Charlie throws an oven mitt at him, and he winces, though it doesn’t hurt.

“This is _D_ _ean,_ you dummy. If he’s mad about his apartment being full of people, it’ll be because he wants to give you a sexy thank-you when he realizes you were thinking of him.”

Cas gives the oven mitt a forlorn look where it lies on the floor.

“This isn’t much,” he mutters. “Hardly deserving of Dean’s sexy thank-yous. He gives very good sexy thank-yous, Charlie.”

“TMI,” she says quickly. “And shut up and be a sweet idiot for your boyfriend like you planned, okay?”

Cas had had too many beers, touched by Charlie and Jo’s words and not sure how to handle his feelings. Apparently, he decided to handle them by enlisting their help planning a surprise for Dean (and a small party for everyone else), because hearing he made Dean _happy_ just made him want to do even better.

He’s an _idiot._

“Nachos,” Charlie repeats, nodding toward the counter. “Chop, chop.”

“They require no chopping,” he retorts, childish, but obediently heads for the counter.

Exactly eight minutes later, he hears the key in the lock. Everyone in the kitchen and living room scrambles to arrange themselves in some absurd performance of casual nonchalance.

Cas, for his part, pretends his knees aren’t trying to tell each other knock-knock jokes and hastens to the door.

(He owes Dean a hug, after all.)

(Though Dean might not want it, once he realizes what’s happening).

Dean smiles at him when he pushes the door open and sees Cas, but the smile quickly falters as his eyes flick to the crowd in the living area.

“Uh,” he says, confused, and Cas clears his throat.

“Indiana Jones,” he blurts out, and then sighs at himself. “I mean. I thought — everyone has gathered for an Indiana Jones marathon, and refreshments will be provided, however, if you want us all to leave, then—”

Dean holds up a hand, lips quirking.

“Wait. Stop.”

Cas swallows, but shuts his mouth, waiting.

Dean licks his lips.

“So . . . this is like a surprise party.”

Cas swears he hears someone giggle from behind him, but Dean ignores them.

Cas should have made them all wait in the kitchen. The part where you couldn’t see the front door.

“Yes.”

“Okay. Why?”

“Because. You’ve been working a lot. And I wanted to — to—”

The words stick, but Dean just nods, smiling, eyes bright.

“You wanted to what?”

Cas takes a deep breath, fingers curling at his sides.

“To make you happy. But if you didn’t want th—mmphh.”

Dean shifts away from his mouth after a moment, kissing his cheek and then patting it with one hand, grin wide.

“I’m happy, Cas.”

Cas tries not to look too relieved.

“Oh. That’s good.”

Dean cups his cheek, leaning forward and pressing his forehead to Cas’s.

“I’d, uh, I’d be even happier if you sat next to me while we watched Indy and cuddled with me.”

“They’re going to be disgusting all evening, aren’t they?” Jo asks dryly, and Cas thinks he hears someone smack her head. “Ow. Fine.”

“That would make me very happy, too,” Cas says, not quite able to look away, and Dean’s thumb strokes his cheek, strangely tender.

"I kind of owe you, now."

"Not really," Cas protests, mouth dry, trying not to think of sexy thank-you's, and Dean smiles.

"Trust me. I do."

"Alright. If you insist."

"I do, Cas. Later."

Dean kisses him again, and then he takes Cas’s hand and drags him to the sofa, everyone scrambling to make space.

It’s not quite enough. Cas ends up half in Dean’s lap, which isn’t without its problems, given that Cas finds this series rather boring, especially in comparison to how interesting he finds Dean, pressed warm against him, arm slung almost possessively around his shoulders.

He waits, very patiently.

It’s late when the movies are over, and even later when Dean finally manages to get everyone to stop dicking around and leave, but—

Dean makes it worth it, anyway.

The next weekend, Dean takes him to the Aquarium and holds his hand the entire time.

Of course, Cas retaliates by taking him to a bar and grill on karaoke night, far enough out of town that they’re unlikely to run into anyone they know, and suddenly, they have date night again, except this time no one’s making them.

Cas likes it.

Like a lot of things, he thinks he likes it too much.

“This can’t last,” he mumbles, when another visit to laser tag has resulted in perfectly acceptable mutual erections, dealt with in the privacy of the apartment with very satisfactory results.

Dean shifts against the pillow, jostling him slightly.

“What can’t?”

“This. The honeymoon phase.”

Dean frowns.

“The honeymoon phase,” he repeats, and Cas nods.

“We’re — dating, and making love all the time, and — well, being idiots, but — it doesn’t last.”

Dean’s quiet for a moment, considering.

“Okay. Maybe not. But — we did this when we were kids, too. We played together and we slept over with each other and we were definitely idiots, and for a while there, it was awesome.”

“But we’re adults, now.”

“So? If anything, it’s better. We’re, uh. We’re communicating better. Pam says that helps.”

“Right, but — we just started. The shine will wear off. There will be — problems.”

“You think?”

“That’s how it normally goes,” Cas insists. He might not have any personal experience with relationships, before now, but he’s heard plenty secondhand.

Dean huffs.

“Since when do we care what normal people are doing, Cas? Neither of us are normal.”

“But-”

“Why do you keep trying to second-guess this?”

Cas sighs.

“I’m not. I just — I want my expectations to be right. I don’t want to be disappointed.”

Dean’s quiet for a moment, and then he’s shaking Cas off, and Cas worries he's said too much, that Dean's upset now — but Dean just rolls him on his back and straddles him, palm settling on his cheek.

“That could happen,” he says, green eyes intent. “But Cas — this doesn’t feel like the honeymoon stage. This feels like — the life I want. I want to work and come home to you, and I want to hang out with you, and I want to go out with you sometimes, and I want to go to bed with you every night. There’s nothing — over-the-top or spectacular about what we’re doing, here. We’re just . . . being together.”

Cas closes his eyes, leaning into the hand on his cheek.

“It feels too good to be that simple,” he mutters, but Dean just shakes his head, leaning forward to kiss him.

“That’s why it works, sweetheart. It feels good without trying.”

“But we _are_ trying.”

Dean strokes his cheek, considering this.

“At some of it, yeah. But — it’s getting easier. I didn’t really think it would, but — the more we do it, the easier it gets.” Dean studies him, searching. “What about you?”

Cas hesitates, then nods.

“But that’s frightening, too. I just — I know you said you were, a little, but — why aren’t you more afraid?”

Dean shrugs.

“I should be. But — I’ve been scared of losing you most of my life, Cas. It’s hard to be afraid of being happy with you.”

Cas blinks.

“Are you? Happy with me?”

Dean smiles.

“Yeah, Cas. I am.”

Cas looks at him, as carefully as he ever has, but try as he might, he can’t find the lie.

“What about you?” Dean asks, smile fading a little. “Are you happy with me?”

Cas doesn’t need to think about it.

“I am,” he whispers. “I’m very happy.”

Dean relaxes, hand slipping up, brushing Cas’s hair back.

“Good. Then let’s just — be happy together. Sound good?”

Cas nods, and he makes himself relax, too.

“Yes, Dean. It sounds good.”

What sounds less good is the phone call Dean makes three days later, one Cas barely catches the tail end of because Dean quickly excuses himself and hangs up as soon as Cas comes into the room.

Cas waits, but Dean just grins and asks if he’s ready for dinner, and Cas supposes that means no explanation is forthcoming.

He can’t help it.

He stews.

Obviously, Cas doesn’t need to know _everything_ about Dean’s life. They are, after all, two separate people, and they each have their personal business. Cas doesn’t copy Dean on his e-mails to Billie, Dean doesn’t always put Sam on speakerphone, when they call, and it is absolutely normal for them both to keep some things private.

Still.

Cas thinks about the panic in Dean’s face, the way he turned away, practically mumbling into the phone before hanging up, and his instincts tell him this is different.

“Everything okay?” Dean asks over dinner the next night. “You’re kinda quiet.”

And Cas means to lie — he’s not really sure how to ask for details about a private phone call without sounding crazy — but Pamela said you were supposed to tell your partner if something was bothering you, as long as you did it respectfully and with an open mind for whatever answer you got, and for the last twenty-four hours, Cas has been very, very bothered by this.

He forces himself to spit it out.

“You made a phone call last night.”

Dean stills, giving him a sharp look, and Cas grits his teeth.

“Of course, you’re allowed to make phone calls, but — you seemed uncomfortable, when I came in.”

Dean hesitates, clearly weighing his options, because—

He’s about to lie.

Cas goes cold.

“Never mind.” He doesn’t want to hear it. He should just trust that it’s nothing to worry about, and if he needs to know, Dean can tell him later. In the meantime, he should just pretend it never happened.

There’s an unpleasant shriek as Dean’s chair scrapes across the floor, and then he’s suddenly there, reaching for Cas.

“Shit, shit, no, don’t — that’s not — reservations. I was making reservations. Cas. Look at me.”

Cas takes a deep breath, forcing himself to look up from his plate. Dean is a little blurry, despite his proximity.

“Reservations,” Cas repeats dully, and Dean nods quickly, hand squeezing Cas’s shoulder.

“Dinner reservations. At that restaurant where we had our shitty special-occasion date. It was going to be a surprise, like — like the Indy marathon.”

Cas blinks, struggling to stay calm.

“I thought we established that wasn’t to our tastes.”

Dean winces.

“Right, but — it’s just — look, let’s do it, just this once. Please? Put on a suit and come to dinner with me?”

Cas doesn’t see the point of it, has no idea what Dean hopes to achieve with it, especially as a surprise for Cas, but the sense of relief he feels is staggering, so he’s not going to risk pissing fate off by saying ‘no.’

“Alright. When?”

“Friday. Six o’ clock.”

“Okay.”

“Cas?”

“Yes?”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to — yeah.”

Cas shrugs, far more nonchalant than he feels.

“It’s fine. Like I said, you’re allowed to make phone calls.”

Dean hesitates.

“Cas.”

“Yes?”

After a beat, Dean sighs, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around Cas.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers. “Even if I’m makin’ shady phone calls, don’t worry. I — I love you.”

Cas carefully breathes in.

“I love you, too,” he manages, and then turns, kissing the side of Dean’s neck, just in case. “Always. More than anything.”

Dean huffs a laugh, but he squeezes Cas a little tighter.

“Finish eating and cuddle on the sofa?”

Cas nods.

“I would like that.”

And he does.

They sit down at 6:03 on Friday, in the same unnervingly empty room with the weird flocked wallpaper and the flickering candles, at the same table as last time, and despite his determination to humor Dean, Cas immediately wants to leave.

Still, he forces himself to stay put, putting his napkin in his lap and trying not to fiddle with his itchy sleeves, and a minute later, the server appears.

It is the same woman as last time.

“Good evening, gentlemen!”

“Good evening,” Cas returns cautiously, although he can’t help himself. This seems like a bad omen, given what happened then.

She beams, distributing their menus.

“My name is Becky, and it’s _so_ wonderful to see you back.” She licks her lips, blinking expectantly at Dean. “Could you remind me of your names, again?”

Dean coughs, smoothing his tie.

“Sure, Becky. I’m Dean.”

She nods eagerly.

“Oh, yes. Dean. I remember, now.”

Dean smiles stiffly.

“And this is — this, uh. This — this is . . .” Dean stops, and the burgundy wallpaper reflects strangely off his face, turning his cheeks ruddy. He pauses so long, Cas almost wonders if he’s somehow _forgotten._

Becky waits with big, hopeful eyes, but Dean just glares at the candle in front of him.

It flickers, almost like it’s glowering right back.

“I’m Ca—” Cas starts helpfully, perplexed, but Dean immediately holds a hand up, motioning him to stop, and Cas falls silent.

After a very, very lengthy moment, Dean clears his throat. Then he turns, looking Becky dead in the eye.

“This is Castiel. The guy I’m gonna marry.”

The words hang in the air for a long second, which is good, because Cas is still trying to figure out if he heard them right.

Abruptly, Dean pales, head snapping toward Cas.

“That I _want_ to marry, I mean. Not — obviously, if he doesn’t—”

“That you’re going to marry,” Cas interjects quickly, something akin to panic filling him, delight slithering gleefully around it. “It’s nice to see you again, Becky.”

_The guy I’m gonna marry._

Becky beams, tablet clutched to her chest, eyes shining.

“ _Congratulations_ ,” she breathes out, and — and someone is congratulating Castiel, because — because ' _the guy I’m gonna marry.'_

Because Dean just said he wants forever with him.

“Can I see the ring?” she asks, bouncing slightly, and Dean stiffens.

“What?”

“The ring! The engagement ring. Where is it? Or — oh, my god, you were going to give it to him later, weren’t you? I’m so sorry, I can come back and see it then!"

Dean looks horrified.

“I don’t — I don’t have a ring.”

Becky stares.

“What?”

“Why would I have a ring?”

Her brows climb.

“Because you just proposed!”

“ _What_? I did not!”

Becky gapes.

“ _You just told him you want to marry him!_ ” she hisses, and Dean nods vigorously.

“Yeah, which — that’s different!”

“No, it’s _not_!” she retorts, a little shrill. “He said _yes,_ you idiot! _That means it’s a proposal!_ ”

“Technically, I didn’t use that word,” Cas offers helpfully, far too giddy to worry about the absence of a ring.

“Shut up,” Becky snaps, shaking her tablet. “That was clearly a proposal, and you were _supposed_ to have a ring. What is _wrong_ with you?”

Dean shoots Cas a helpless look, visibly distraught.

Cas wishes Becky would leave.

“Becky,” he interrupts, not quite able to look away from Dean, despite the distress on his face. “I think it’s considered rude to propose without discussing the possibility of marriage, first, and Dean and I have not. Regardless — whatever this was, I am very, very happy with it. May we order?”

Becky frowns.

“But—”

“Please.”

“But—” she tries again, and he licks his lips.

“Please let us order,” he insists. “I’d like to be alone with Dean.”

He thinks it was a very reasonable request, but for some reason, Becky goes quiet, eyes wide, and across the table, Dean buries his face in his hands with a quiet, ‘Oh, my _god._ ’

“Oh.” Becky clears her throat, smoothing back her hair. “Of course. What will you have?”

Cas licks his lips.

“The grilled salmon, please.”

She nods, furiously tapping away on her screen.

“And for you, Dean?”

“The twelve-ounce prime rib steak,” he mutters through his fingers, and she hums.

“Would you like that with the baked potato or the seasoned vegetables?”

“The vegetables, please,” Cas supplies, and Dean lifts his head to give Cas a dirty look, a look that makes something hot curl in Cas’s stomach.

“Perfect!” Becky chirps. “That will be out in about . . . thirty minutes,” she concludes carefully, and Dean scowls.

“Seriously?”

She nods.

“Yup! Enjoy your wait!”

He blinks.

“What?” he asks, but Becky is already sashaying toward the archway.

She pauses for a moment.

And then she quickly shuffles to one side, freeing the heavy velvet curtain, before doing the same on the other.

Without a word, she leaves, firmly tugging them shut behind her.

Cas smiles.

“Uh,” Dean says, gaping after her. “Why did she . . .”

Carefully, Cas folds his napkin and sets it on the table, and then he quietly pushes his chair back, slipping to the floor.

Dean makes a strangled noise.

“No. Cas, _no_.” Cas tugs at his tie, loosening it, and calmly reaches for the edge of the tablecloth. “ _Cas._ You are _not_ blowing me under the table at a nice restaurant!”

“Becky gave us permission.”

“Becky is not _allowed_ to give us permission!” Dean says, a touch hysterical, shooting the curtains a frantic look. “Cas, I’m serious! We could get caught!”

“Not if you’re quiet enough.”

Dean sucks in a breath, and Cas crawls under the table without waiting for a response.

Just enough light comes through the tablecloth for Cas to see Dean, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

A moment later, the other edge lifts, Dean ducking down to look at him.

“ _Really_?”

Cas nods solemnly, resting his palms on Dean’s thighs and looking back.

“Really.”

Dean makes a face.

“You know we’re not in a porno, right?”

“We’d make excellent porn,” Cas points out, sliding his hands a little higher, and Dean flinches. “But yes, I know we’re not in a porno.”

Dean bites his lip.

“This could go so fucking wrong.”

“If someone comes in and you’re hunched over, peering under the table, it certainly will.”

Dean rolls his eyes, and Cas smiles, pulse light and fast, Dean’s thighs warm beneath his hands.

“I won’t, if you don’t want me to,” he says gently, and Dean hesitates.

“How much time did she say?”

“Thirty minutes, although it’s probably only twenty-five, now.”

“And you can’t wait until we get home?”

Cas tilts his head.

“Dean. You just said you wanted to marry me.”

“Yeah, but—”

“And I want to marry you. I’ve always wanted to marry you.”

Dean swallows.

“Oh. Okay, but—”

“And right now, I really want you to put your hands in my hair and let me suck you off under this table, because I’m very in love with you and you made me very happy and I want to express that to you, like Pamela told me to.”

Dean chokes on a laugh.

“Cas, I don’t think this is what she meant.”

Cas shrugs.

“It’s not enough time for anything else.”

Dean scrubs a hand down his face, though he’s still grinning.

“Son of a bitch. Fine. Make it quick.”

Cas smirks.

“I will.”

Chuckling, Dean lets the tablecloth fall.

“I am fucking crazy about you, you know that, right?” he calls softly, and Cas reaches for Dean’s belt, joy making his fingers tremble.

“I think so.”

“And when I do get you a ring—” Dean pauses, breath hitching as Cas drags down his zipper, knuckles brushing along his length where it’s quickly hardening. “ _Fuck_. I’m not giving it to you in public.”

Cas grins, though he knows Dean can’t see him.

“That would probably be for the best,” he says, and gets to work.

Becky very loudly announces her arrival twenty-three minutes later, cautiously nudging the curtains aside, but everyone’s in their chairs and Dean’s already fixed Cas’s tie and the only reason anyone would ever suspect anything untoward is the mess of Cas’s hair, but really, that’s nothing new.

Cas supposes there is also the way Dean is just staring at him, cheeks still flushed, the look on his face unmistakable, from Cas’s perspective, given that he’s had the privilege of seeing it so often — but really, even if Becky has her suspicions, she can’t be sure.

Cas doesn’t really care either way.

He eats his salad and fondly watches Dean devour his steak, and when Dean settles down enough to start talking about random things, eventually settling on Moondoor plans, happiness makes Cas strangely optimistic.

“If I ever went,” he starts, and Dean nearly drops his fork. “What kind of character would I be?”

“Uh. Charlie’d love it if you were one of her knights. And you’d look fucking hot in chainmail.”

Cas tries not to look too pleased by that.

“What duties would that entail? Would I still get to play with you?”

“Hell, yeah, you would.” Dean grins. “And when you went on missions for Charlie, I’d give you one of my maidenly favors, for good luck.”

“That sounds nice.”

Dean nods.

“It would be. She’d love it if you finally came.” He catches Cas’s eye. “ _I’d_ love it if you finally came.”

“Maybe I’ll try it. I don’t think I’ll ever be any good, but—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean says quickly, shaking his head. “That’s not the point, Cas. The point is to have fun. And I think we’ll definitely have fun.”

Cas nods, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Alright.”

Dean hesitates.

“We could get married a second time, in Moondoor, if you played. Just saying.”

Cas blinks.

“You’d marry me twice?”

Dean lifts his shoulders, nudging a piece of broccoli with his fork.

“Well, yeah, Cas, ‘cause it’d mean you’d marry _me_ twice.”

“I’ll marry you as many times as you want.”

Dean chuckles, but the blush is back in his cheeks, and Cas finds it as enchanting as he always has.

“I don’t think that’s how it works, but — good to know.”

“It is,” Cas agrees, serious. “I like that we tell each other these things, now. And — this was a good date. I think I understand the point, now. Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Thanks for comin’ with me,” Dean says softly.

“I’d go anywhere with you,” Cas returns, sincere. “As long as you wanted me to.”

Dean bites his lip.

“Okay. Good thing we’re getting married then,” he says, and the words sound like a joke, but Dean is just looking at him, eyes warm, and Cas thinks he understands.

“This was a good date,” he repeats. “But I’m done eating and I think we should go home and cuddle.”

Dean smiles.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

So they go home, and they cuddle, and then Dean very generously returns the favor from earlier; and when Cas wakes up the next morning, bizarrely compelled to text everyone he knows to inform them that Dean wants to marry him, he thinks he finally feels too happy to be able to question it.

And he knows that will change; he knows there will be problems, both old, unresolved ones, and new, unpredictable ones, but for now, they date and make love and generally act like idiots, and it’s like something finally clicks inside of Cas’s hopelessly dysfunctional brain.

It’s okay to have problems, he realizes. He and Dean aren’t easy people, and they’ve _always_ had problems; even if they were perfectly sane, functional people, they’d probably _still_ have problems (according to Pamela, anyway).

What matters is what they do about it.

And since things are good right now, since they feel _safe,_ for once, Cas takes the opportunity to practice, and he can tell Dean does, too.

Perhaps they’ll stumble, someday, and the things they’re learning now will be put to the test.

But today, they’re happy together, just like Cas always wanted — just like _Dean_ always wanted, apparently — and for now . . .

They simply let it be.

\- end -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild Sexual Content: bottom!Cas/top!Dean, implied blowjobs, please let me know if I forgot something.

**Author's Note:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> **Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism:** This tag is for flashbacks/references to John Winchester's drinking and associated behavior, as well as for Dean's unhealthy coping mechanisms in the present. It is indicated that John was typically drunk when he came to town, and some of those incidents are described in detail. I will do my best to put warnings in the chapters, but this is very present in this story.
> 
> **Child Abuse/Child Neglect:** These tags are for Dean and Cas's childhood, which is detailed in flashbacks. It is indicated/shown that Dean's father and Cas's mother could be violent at times, and both were emotionally abusive. Dean's father left him with Bobby and Ellen, which was overall a very good thing, but Cas's mother was emotionally distant and utterly failed to provide the affection and care he needed. Again, these are persistent threads in the story, so please be prepared.
> 
> **Recreational Drug Use** : Cas uses marijuana, and also consumes unspecified drugs while in NYC with friends.
> 
> **Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms** : Dean uses alcohol to cope at several points. Cas uses both alcohol and marijuana.
> 
> **Explicit Sexual Content and Top/Bottom Tags** There are (probably) three explicit sex scenes, which will be marked and should be able to be skipped. They have been added because I am bad at writing smut and I need to practice in order to become less bad. Sorry in advance. **All explicit content is Bottom Cas**. There is exactly one non-explicit scene that implies Bottom Dean. If you don't care about either thing, awesome, but if you do, I don't want it to be a surprise. I'll warn for all of these in the chapter notes.
> 
> **Almost Threesome** : Cas gets picked up by a couple he meets at Meg's work party, after Dean has suggested the open relationship. There is some kissing, but it goes no further and Cas doesn't want it to. **Neither Dean nor Cas have sex with anybody else.**
> 
> **Background Relationships:** Bobby/Ellen, Sam/OFC, Meg/Tracy, Anna/Bela
> 
> Again, if you have any questions or concerns, please ask, and if I left something out, please let me know. Thank you!


End file.
